Medusa Frequency

19 Still Three O’Clock in the Morning

It’s still three o’clock in the morning, the night sister still in her space of light at the edge of the dark ward, at the edge of underworld. Her face is in shadow, her white cap flickers, becomes a writhing and a hissing silence. She looks up, her shadowy gaze is on me. The silence crackles with its brilliance, her mouth is moving as it moved above the pinky dawn water between the beach and the Island Tamaraca.

‘What?’ I said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘We haven’t had a ten o’clock urine specimen from you,’ she said.