The Spoked Wheel

The fluoroscopy room of a private clinic in Kyoto on an autumn evening, a broad dark brown wooden cabinet nearly two metres tall with its double doors open, on its cornice a plain brass plate and three black insulator pins, inside a large silvery spoked wheel with contact arms spinning in a soft blur above a black iron tank, faint blue sparks at the contacts, to the left a tall wooden stand with rope pulleys holding a cream-white framed screen, to the right a black perforated control desk with round meters, plain dials with bare pointers, a hand in a dark sleeve on a lever, paper sliding doors glowing amber.