The Blind Camera

An examination room of a university hospital in Tokyo on a rainy June morning, white tiled walls, a rain-streaked steel window, on a white enamel table a flexible black ribbed tube seventy centimetres long in a wide curve, at its front end a short clear capsule with a rounded silver tip and a sliver of amber film inside, at its rear a copper-brown handle with a flat silver and black control box and a round knurled knob, every metal surface plain, a hand in a white coat sleeve on the handle, thumb on the knob, beside it a white kidney dish and a short strip of developed film hanging from a clip.