The Petrol-Blue Cabinet

A heart function room of a medical academy in Magdeburg on a winter afternoon, a mobile electrocardiograph cabinet one metre thirty tall, painted petrol blue, its grey control panel crowded with small black knobs and slide switches, every knob plain, at its left a folded stack of plain pale pink paper with a single drawn wavy line, at its side a white wire basket of sheets, on a stand arm a small grey oscilloscope with a round screen glowing soft yellow, a nurse's hand in a white sleeve lifting the paper, an empty couch with a folded grey blanket and coiled electrode cables, bare plastered walls, a radiator under a net curtain.