Kleinzeit

Large Valuable Lovely Thought

Night, night, night. An immanence of night. Unlimited hoarded reserves of night in the clock. Implacable, the clock, its hands never tiring. Pompous in its unremitting precision: sixty seconds to the minute, sixty minutes to the hour, twenty-four hours to the day. Same for the pauper and the millionaire, the old and the young, the sick and the well.

That’s a damned lie, said Sister to the clock. Many’s the time I’ve seen you double the bad hours and halve the good ones.

Many’s the time, ho ho, said the clock.

Sister looked away from the gloating face, listened to the ward beyond the lamplight, wrote slowly on a notepad:

E-U-R-Y-D-I–C-E

Ah, said Hospital. Our not-very-long-ago conversation.

You too, said Sister. Bloody-minded brute.

Not at all, said Hospital. You and I, we’re professionals, aren’t we. We are past illusion and the filmy flimsy curtains of romance, are we not.

Bugger off, said Sister.

What was it you were saying to God, said Hospital. All men are sick. Yes. God didn’t understand you. He wouldn’t.

You do, I suppose, said Sister.

It was from me you got that thought, said Hospital.

Thanks so much, said Sister.

You’re welcome, said Hospital. It is truly a large valuable lovely thought. I don’t pass it about indiscriminately. I tucked it inside your bra one day, placed it in your bosom. A pleasant grope.

Dirty old Hospital, said Sister.

I am what I am, said Hospital. As we were saying, all men are sick. Life is their sickness. Life is the original sickness of inanimate matter. All was well until matter messed itself about and came alive. Men are rotten clear through with being animate. Women on the other hand have not quite lost the health of the inanimate, the health of the deep stillness. They’re not quite so sick with life as men are. I’ll tell you something I didn’t tell Kleinzeit. The Thracian women didn’t tear Orpheus apart. He fell apart, keeps falling apart, will fall apart. Hell-bent on falling apart. Tiresome, though I admire his pluck I must say. A strong swimmer.

I’ll tell you something, said Sister. You’re a dreadful bore. I don’t care about Orpheus and Eurydice and all that. I just want Kleinzeit to get well.

He’ll get well all right, said Hospital. He’ll recover from life. As I said, I keep you. He doesn’t get you.

Rubbish, said Sister, put her head on the desk, cried quietly in the lamplight.