trout

paraphernalia

Sonja Yelich

The legend of the bomb. It was circular.
I ate the last of the Nescafe on the road
side while the hospital with all its
paraphernalia fell over. First there was
The Runner-Boy. Scooting through
the wards on his bare feet with his
bleak toenails. Second there was his
black hair in small prime numbers, twirls
& circles. Automatic is a good way to
describe the way he took the money
for the coffee and motored. The brick
spread. And what a blistering waste of
antibiotics all over the dirt. And the saline.
And the trolleys. And the spare plastic
limbs scattered to the four winds. You get
the feeling there might have been an astonishing
amount of projectile vomiting. The pinging
of glass. And the nurse – fresh from taking a
pulse on her arse. Lastly, the tall Silence of Quiet
and the science of what had just happened. All
mapped out with such reliable precision from
aways over there.