Kleinzeit

Good News

‘Rather nicely stabilized, I should say,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I’m quite pleased with you actually.’ Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna seemed pleased too.

Kleinzeit smiled modestly, wondered if that was a spot of blood on Fleshky’s white coat. Probably some sort of chemical.

Dr Pink looked at the medication record on Kleinzeit’s chart. ‘Yes.’ he said, ‘I think we can take you off this lot’

‘Try something new, eh?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘No,’ said Dr Pink. ‘We’ll just see how you do without any drugs, see how things go.’ He’s a devil, said the faces of the three young doctors. He’ll try anything.

‘You mean I’m all right now?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Dr Pink, ‘and I’m not making any promises. We’ll see where we are in a few days.’ He smiled, moved on with Fleshky, Potluck and Krishna.

Can you move over a little, said the bed. I can’t seem to get comfortable.

Kleinzeit ignored it, huddled under the bedclothes. All at once the streets outside seemed one vast desolation, Underground the very abyss, the thought of sitting on that freezing floor with his glockenspiel was appalling. Fleets of Morton Taylor lorries thundered past, changing gears contemptously. No window nearby, but unseen aeroplanes soared high in utter silence, bound for golden otherwheres.

‘Good news, eh?’ said Tede. ‘That’s why I always say Keep smiling.’

Klenzeit made a gesture with two fingers on the side away from Tede, picked up some yellow paper, affected to be heavily absorbed in writing. What he wrote was:

Golden, Golden, Golden Virginia,

Be my tobacco, be my sin.

Not even original. Drogue’s, that was. Was Drogue still alive at the other end of the ward? Kleinzeit had been away from there for a week now. They were all fading into the past. What was there to say to Redbeard, Schwarzgang, and the others, even if he got the nurse to wheel him to the old neighbourhood.

The bed kept arching its back, trying to slide him off. Hospital had had nothing to say for a long time. Word hadn’t dropped in either. The yellow paper was inert and lifeless in his hands. Outside the hospital the winter sunlight walked slowly past as if leaning on a cane. How had he come to this with the yellow paper, like some dreadful marriage to a frog princess who would always be a frog.

For a time there had been mystery, complexities, excitement, riddles full of promise: the yellow-paper, foolscap, and Rizla men, the permutations of barrow full of rocks, the possibilites of STAFF ONLY and its key. None of it had been explained, none of it mattered, he had no questions. He reached under the bed. No one there. He thought of the getaway with Pain Company. Those had been the days! He yawned, fell asleep.