Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Conflagrations

Private Clinic
Neon lights shroud the room in an austere sterile white canopy. An old blood red carpet lies massacred over the dusty parquet in the middle of the room. On top of it a pile of magazines vie for attention over a rectagular glass table. In the corner, a gigantic lamp with a metal stump and an orange shade sits atop an antique wooden chest with bite marks on its corners and the fading memory of a tea glass on its surface. In front of him a large painting hangs choking on the weight of a golden baroque frame. Underneath it an oversized green leather reception chair seats an impish man puffing nervously on a cigarette, his face hardly discernable from within the shroud of smoke. The man's left arm rises and falls to a silent rhythm, his hand contorts violently digging its nails in the armrest when it falls and its palm when it rises. He stares at the painting instead. A woman draped in white linen sits on her knees, half turned, smiling coyly over her left shoulder. He thinks he can spot a nipple peeping out of her left breast. "Ustad Mohammed", he pounces startled, the book on his lap falls to the floor. “Aiwa” he says clumsily raising his right hand as he bends down to pick up the book with his left. “Etfaddal”, the nurse says ushering him down the dark corridor.

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