MORDICUS It was the colour of ruby carnations spiralling up the plastic tube as it left my body, but I suppose all I could see were dollar signs and the quickfix takeaway food I would buy with those bloodied coins. I was hungry, you understand. The needle was deep in my arm in a way that was comforting, something about that warm flow against both sides of my skin at once. The needle was there, and the nurse was not, but she would be back with her rough hands, and dirty white-moon nails. There were to-ings and fro-ings about, other needles in other arms, and (I cannot tell you how often I have relived, revived, remembered these moments) somewhere amongst them, someone who surely felt a little faint? A little weak at the knees with disease? But the needle was deep in my arm sucking like a thirsty leech so that when I left I would have been lighter but for the bloodied coins in my pocket. So now, lying on this seedy mattress, staring at stars in the ceiling, I rekindle the touch of those rough nurse hands, and try not to think about voracious virus fighter planes cruising under my skin, and the weakness in my limbs and lungs, the dreary dead weights behind my eyes. Copyright © Averil Bones 2001