The Serulian

A doctor with shiny-veneer teeth, and a shiny-veneer manner, scans the room.

Patients, with anxious, hopeful faces, watch him and the creaking hands of the wind-you-up clock on the paint-peeling wall. 

Fat raindrops slither through a crack in the ceiling and ping into a battered tin bucket. Machinery flashes at regular intervals, monitoring the trembling man with spittle trickling down his chin. Still waiting for a bed. 

Tick-tock-drip-drip-beep ….

The doctor balances a shiny-screen digital device upon his left palm. 

A collective breath-hold hangs in the chemically freshened air as he walks amongst them.

Phyllis, row eleven, wears worn, knee-patched trousers and a grimace. The pain gnaws at her bones like the worry gnaws at her guts. She can’t miss more work.

The doctor bestows a shark-sincere smile as he stands before the sweat-glistened, fear-stinking woman. He taps the screen briskly and turns it towards her.

Neighbouring patients lean in to read her options:

Osteosarcoma – left tibia:

Chemotherapy – £60,000

Amputation and aftercare – £15,000

Pain relief – £4 per pack

Phyllis chokes down a dry pill. As she limps along the corridor, she checks her purse. If she takes the bus, she can’t feed the gas metre. 

She shuffles down the high street, passing a restaurant where she catches a glimpse of her greyed-out reflection against the glass-clinking patrons within, spilling their pound-a-bubble effervescence. 

She turns the corner into the urine-perfumed, litter-strewn ginnel. She heads for the new railway line, where the trains slice bullet-fast towards the terminus.

She pauses, by the derelict Polish shop, to toss her last two quid in the Costa cup beside the thin man huddled in the doorway. He thanks her with a gap-toothed smile.

Heather is a sight-impaired spoonie and emerging working-class writer from Yorkshire. Her work has been published by: Reflex Press, Pure Slush, Mono, A Coup of Owls, Free Flash Fiction and others. She has been nominated for Best of the Net. Find her at https://haigh19c.wixsite.com/heatherbooknook. Twitter: @HeatherBookNook, Instagram @HeatherBookNook.