valorous idylls chapter 10

The All Nighter

"How did you fall?" asks Doctor Boko Andrew Shingani.
"Walking in the afternoon, flat ground, maybe some frost, no drink taken, I might have slipped," I said.
He remained silent.
"How about letting me go home, Doc?" I ask.
"Is one of your arms normally twice the size of the other?" he enquired, answering a question with a question.
The hours tick away.
I've been admitted to the Accident And Emergency Ward.
Lots of patients lolling on trolleys.
This is a deceptive scene.
There is no shortage of hospital beds in Ireland but the trade unionised nurses will not allow access to a bed unless there are a particular number of nurses working at a given moment.
It's a power game.
Leaving patients on trolleys is an effective way to extort pay rises from the government or to force an increase in staffing levels.
When nurses say "no beds are available," they mean "we will not unlock the door into the room where lots of extra beds are available unless the government pays us more or hires more of us."
I've been lucky.
No trolley for me.
And some privacy.
They've put me in an examination room on my own.
I'm lying on an extended examination chair which is in some ways quite like a couch.
There is a sheet thrown over me.
I've been praying the rosary for a few hours.
The prayer has come alive to me, which has happened before, but tonight it's quite distinctive.
The prayer is more real than anything around me.
Farmer Jones and his wife have stayed.
There have been a few trips to the X Ray department and back to this room again.
It's 3am.
Doctor Boko Andrew Shingani beetles in.
He says to my advocates: "You two should go home. I'm going to keep him here all night. I'll get an ambulance to bring him to Dublin at 6am. They're going to operate on him at Tallaght hospital in the morning."
My good neighbours depart.
Doctor Boko Andrew Shingani stands beside me and says: "I heard you talking to the nurse earlier about parrots. In my country we have an animal. It has a human face. No. No. It's not a meerkat. It is a little animal. And its face looks human. It has little hands that look human. But it is an animal. And sometimes we mistreat it. You know children and so on. We mistreat it. We throw stones at it. Or we hold onto it and we won't let it go. And it cries. It cries like a little baby. Like a human baby. But it is not a human. It is an animal. There is a word for it in our language. I don't know what it is in English. And then maybe we let it go. And it runs up a tree. And it laughs at us. It has a laugh like a human laugh. But it is an animal. And it runs up the tree and laughs at us."
Boko Andrew Shingani stops talking and looks at me expectantly.
"Ah. " I say, " the dignity of creatures."
Boko Andrew Shingani seems disappointed by this comment and bustles off.
I return to the rosary.