Two police vans were parked outside A&E and I thought: Max. A junky-looking guy in a wheelchair was surrounded by three junky-looking men and two junky-looking women. I kind of smiled. Do you know where intensive care is please? One directed me thru a door carousel that led to a reception and behind this glass a woman was at a computer and I waited twenty seconds, thirty. Finally she went: Yes? I can smell your spine, I said and down this long corridor the air was like antiseptic and I imagined swimming up my nose over my skin these germs with teeth, postmodern diseases. Up a stairwell then, down another corridor, I saw a signboard. For the heart, it said, life be simple: No Hope Intensive Care Unit.
