I’m half sitting in my hospital bed, not much to do except letting my eyes wander about the room. To the right, the peach colored curtain separating me from the next bed, to the left the leather clad visitor chair and the light switches on the wall marked A and B. The ceiling above with the four fluorescent tubes casting their sterile light over the room, next to it the grating covering the ventilation, the smoke detector off to the side, and the rail for the curtain running like railroad tracks through the landscape. My main companion, the cream colored wall in front of me, the big clock with the red hand shaving off the seconds, four little information posters, the one in the middle featuring a cartoon nurse and the one below it, an old man falling over, and below them, the alcohol dispenser and hand washing instructions.

I have an IV but it’s not the kind of nutrient solution you’d expect, but rather antibiotics, penicillin straight into my bloodstream. I have a strange kind of pain from the IV, a feeling like ice is being pumped through my veins, from the needle in my hand up along my arm. Looking at the clock ticking away the seconds much too slowly and spelling out this text in my head is all I can do to distract myself from the pain.