An old mattress, slumped against the hospital wall, upright, as if shot and refusing to die; its faded blue stripes, covered with the indelible excretions of the ill and the dying. Yellow foam protruding like a festering wound. Twelve other beds around it, very still, as though stunned by the horrors they have witnessed.
Roses of mould blooming, floor to the ceiling. The cornicing crumbling, revealing darkness beneath. Some of it, fallen on to an upturned table that lies on its side, top drawer gawping open. Papers, strewn around it; dark spikey signatures just visible as if a dicussion has turned suddenly violent; all efforts of civilization and diplomacy lost in rage. The floor around it is strewn with dead flowers, a stethoscope, a crutch that has been charred at the end. Dark green bottles, several of them, are spilled on their sides, thick saffron liquid oozing out.
A wasp's nest hidden in a cavity in the wall. Wasps zipping in and out, business like. Full of themselves, like they govern here, and this place was taken out of the hands of the doctors, and left to them.
Finally, a pistol; bent over - the barrel and magazine, somehow suggesting brokenness, sadness, not power.
YOU ARE READING
Tales of Disturbance
Science FictionA young teenage girl, haunted by the memories of her father's execution, attempts to escape a cruel regime by night. A solitary woman, abandoned by her husband, inadvertently plays into the cruel hands of 'the state'. In another totalitarian regime...
