Hospital

What pills, the lance or fire will not cure, anesthetics help inure the green-gowned rolled from operating to recovery rooms by brusque orderlies, the aseptic hallways rife with plastic receptacles and fresh latex tinged with alcohol swabs, ointment, damp bandages with an undertaste of heliotrope. In a squall of shoe squeak, IVs are held onto like bus poles, disembodied voices materialize in the fluorescence, disappear, no patient seen until a curtain gets drawn, a clipboard consulted. Time is short, the healing long.