Brother
Skunk fingered the sodden piece of bloodied tissue from his cornflakes. He had
earlier cut himself shaving and the fragment of tissue positioned on the
spreading damp of his jawline had clung forgotten even as he had pulled on both
t-shirt and jumper. Only now had it loosened enough to drop into the bowl of
cereal and he regarded it more as an inconvenience than any kind of omen,
though he was by no means ambivalent to the sight of blood, albeit his own, on
this the third morning of her observation in the hospital.
cog: It’s simply procedure, and,
obviously, with her particular history, we just want to make sure that
everything is checking out, and when we’re satisfied that
Skunk: Well what... I mean, isn’t it
normal that, I would’ve thought that some pains in, that there would be some
stomach pains at this stage of
cog: And that’s what we’re checking.
There’s a specialist who’ll be here tomorrow, and once he’s had a look at her
and is happy with um, with his own examination, then you can both go back... I
would say though that from here, from now, it would be best either for
you to move into the hotel or for ache1 to move in with you,
just depending on which you’re more comfortable with, basically in case there are
any further, any problems, and she needs to come back in. I know that at the,
at the hotel, there would be no problem in them getting her into the hospital
at any time, but, for your own... What I’m saying is I think she would
appreciate your being there if anything, if something like this was to happen
again.
He
pushed the flakes around with the spoon only to find them now soft, an inedible
pulp that took off even his taste for toast and coffee but drank the coffee
anyway, aware he might be glad of its bracing fortification later in the morning.
