Mike Mate

The doctor slipped her finger into the man’s cheek, she was wearing surgical gloves and checking for a foreign object left inside. Then she handed him over to me. He smelled of alcohol and urine. I slipped the tip of a long needle in and out along the length of the knife wound, administering a local anesthetic, he jerked – my hand trembled. I started sewing; the nylon was thin – I could hardly see it in the dim light of Victoria Hospital emergency ward – it kept breaking. Eight stitches later the man walked out and I graduated from pork and leather. Next was a hypertension (just the vitals), then a broken femur (traction). And so my practical night went by. It wasn’t a busy night – despite being Friday, end of the month, pay-day. Outside the swinging emergency doors rain came down in buckets. Cape Times headline: the worst storm in fifteen years to hit the Cape of Storms.