cars will one day reside in the museums of hate

THE HOSPITAL

Two hours of non-stop rain, a solace from the heat and closeness of the night. City rain is greasy,it varnishes the roads and pavements with an oily film. He took off his jacket, put it in a black canvas shoulder bag. Water soaked though the shirt, ran off his hair and down his back. Bad moods flowed out into the sea, always hungry, always reclaiming. This man will slip as he's walking because his shoes are worn. He may swear out loud in the street, curse the synthetic culture, the life stylists and art careerists. He may regain his balance momentarily, then go crashing to the ground. The business people huddled under the dripping awnings of jewelry shops and estate agents are furtively anxious and openly hostile. Are they concerned that he is drunk, mad, is going a place a cold knife to their throats and whisper "could you spare a little change for something to eat today"? Their fear will make them generous! Contamination by touch is their greatest fear. There is no sun-light in the financial district, there are shadows from tall glass buildings. The gigantic architecture of an exclusive world blots out the sun, prevents us from feeling warmth and sensation. On the main streets the pace is hot and nasty, the feeling is different, peoples faces gleam like wax. There are grey patches between the thick and stunted buildings, between the wholesale stationeries and the chartered accountants. When a country's population is outnumbered by rats, then perhaps a small victory is won. The path-way that cuts across a segment of 'waste' ground drops steeply, you could easily loose your footing muddy up the elbow of your one decent coat. The path ends, he stings his hands on the nettles, stands and stares at the beautiful unkempt lawns of the old hospital. The windows are silent and watchful. (Just think about those business people men and women in spacious restaurant's, working out in fully equipped health clubs, in airplanes over the pacific, sipping Hennessey, warming the ink in gold Parker pens signing cheques at the poolside discotheque casino revolving golf coarse) The hospital is his church. Boarded windows are bandaged eyes, this is where he comes for guidance, while scrumping apples and visualizing the interior wing by wing, window by window. Images projected behind the shutters. In the children's ward the nurses are flustered, a child has managed to get her hands on a pair of scissors giving half the ward haircuts that are as fierce as they are strange. Visiting hour is in 45 minutes. It is decided that the children will be told to wear cotton night-caps. The doctors for their part will convince the parents that " this is part of the most up to date development in modern medicine" As resident patriarchs they loath the idea of this base deception and hint with cold humour that the nurses will be asked to "fulfill certain needs" If they should refuse they run the risk of loosing their jobs which would lead to a life on the streets, starvation, madness, drugs and prostitution,because that's all freedom has to offer. Doctors are good manipulators of fear and fear is more precise that a surgeons scalpel. Hospitals smell of constant sanitation, a lot of time is spent scrubbing and soaping until it smells clean. Dirt is not our problem, dirt is what makes us flesh and blood, dirt is what heals our sight, dirt is what cleans us, unites us. WE ARE DIRT! A dirty man and a dirty woman enter the hospital, the doors slam behind them like prison bars. Their daughter (who is not older enough to be in the advanced stages of dirtiness) is dying. They want her to get well, they pray at night kneeling at her bedside holding eachother and crying. Life is sometimes a slow turning on the rack. Six days from now the child will die. After death all is imagination, fantasy, and faith. To grieve in isolation is painful. Sunday will never be bath night again.