Masked faces loomed over me.

“...trepan beneath the fourth auriole, cut out the trigoral majoris, bend the spine at the eighteenth and fifty-sixth vertebrae, sir?”

“Forsythe-Watson?” a voice queried.

“Flagellate the epson minoris, remove the damaged ribs, heart and liver, protrude the cervix, apply a negative current to the fons axon and prelaberate with 500 cc’s of Dopomangion, sir?”

“Christ!!!”

“5,000 cc’s, sir?”

“D’you want to kill the fucker, Forsythe-Watson?”

“It would seem the humane thing to do, sir?”

“You’re in bloody surgery now, young man, not in some bleeding-heart School of Psychiatry. There’s such a thing as the Hypocritic Oath. Let’s have your opinion Wilkinson?”

“Steep ‘un in bile o’ frog and snail-paste afor the new moon do come into the belly o’ Cassiopeia, sir?”

“My god, sister, where do we get ’em from?... And what do you say Richardson?”

“Arr...”

“Come along, Richardson?”

“Gi’ un to the Widdies, sir?”

“Mars perhaps, Mr Smith? Haw, haw, haw!”

“Quite possibly, sister. Tomorrow at nine then, gentlemen... Sister, I shall want the aeoporhythmatic Pierce gun, with full blow-torch connection, and a Smythe-Watson rib-catch. I shall also need the twin anal malformator with optic withdrawal. And, sister... about half-a-dozen toads’ eyes, the gizzard of a Blue-backed Californian Alligator and... this may be difficult? You remember the Irish MP who asked that question about consultants’ salaries?... O’fookes-Schmidt or something like that?... Well, I shall need his balls. Why are you giggling, sister?”

“Oh, Mr Smith... You are a one!”

“You think I’m joking sister? Surgery’s under threat I tell you. It has been ever since the bloody chinkies cured President Brightside’s piles with No. 8 darning needles. It’s every doctor and every patient for him even if its a her self now. I’m not going to lose this consultancy after eighty-three years. We’ve got to get hold of his balls.”

“Nurse. Untie the patient’s pyjama cord for Mr Smith, please.”

“No, no. Not his. The MP’s. This O’Fookes feller’s...”

“Ooops! Silly me... Meanwhile, what should we do about a pre-med, sir?”

“Oh, 8000 cc’s of iguana’s vomit will do him nicely, sister.”

“Very well, sir. Emetic for the iguana, please nurse.”

* * *

The patient in the next bed was making a fuss.

“What kind of burgers are these?”

“Eagleburgers,” the nurse replied returning to the trolley.

“God is a deaf oyster,” my fellow invalid muttered as I turned towards the bandaged oval somewhere behind which I imagined his eyes to be located. “You ever eaten a boot?” He was toying with the filling of his burger.

I took a sip from the prescription glass of Old Mother’s Eyelash juice on the table beside me... and screamed. Next to me a huge white oyster was attacking a writhing soul. “Say, he ain’t delirious is he, mate?” I heard a voice calling to the enormous bivalve.

Why was the nurse hurrying?

Who was that trolley for?

“...Alright, sister, just hold him steady. Your boots, Wilkinson... Boots, man! Bee owe owe tee ess. Boots. No, no, don’t take them off. Get them up here. Stand on the bed, man! Good... Now, sister, 3000 cc’s... quickly. And Richardson, 42,000 volts... don’t hold the bare wires, you fool! You’d better do it Forsythe-Watson! Good... Now jump Wilkinson. On his chest. Come on! Higher man, jump... How’s his anal pallor, sister?... Damn... Higher, Wilkinson!”

“Pssst.”

“Pa?”

“Courage, son!”

I saw my father’s face momentarily between Wilkinson’s corduroyed legs. He was peering over a plate of spaghetti agli occhi dei rospi. What was he doing here?

“Can’t stop long. I’m portering now. No more moonlighting, son. Welfare to Work to Welfare, eh? They’ve got me. This is for your Ma. She’s in the private ward of course. Always complains if it’s not hot. Must go.”

Perhaps it was the pounding of Wilkinson’s dung-heavy boots, or perhaps the lightning arcing from the terminals Forsythe-Watson held to my temples, but all I could think of was a little bar far away, the darkness inside and the sunlight out, and the inane conversation suspending for a brief golden while the march of Old Mortality.

These thoughts I must somehow have expressed, for the nurse holding my wrists began to weep.

“Get a hold of yourself, Nurse Gita,” Sister said firmly. But those dusky eyes continued to shed tears.

To me the nurse said, “O life-giving sun, offspring of the Lord of Creation, Solitary Seer of Heaven, spread thy light and withdraw Thy blinding splendour that I may behold Thy radiant form! That Spirit far within Thee is my own inmost Spirit.”

To Sister she said, “My mind is in confusion because in thy words I find contradictions. Tell me in truth therefore by what path may I attain the supreme. Shall I let go of him?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, nurse,” Sister said crossly.

“Higher, Wilkinson, higher! Half-a-million, Forsythe-Watson,” Mr Smith shouted, plunging yet another needle in.

Dung flew, volts crackled, synthesised mule-hormone spurted, the tears of heaven fell, my father’s face momentarily reappeared as he passed with a plate of cauterised sucking pig held high.

“Good luck, son,” he called once again.

Much as I loved him he was beginning to irritate me.

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