The Listening Cot

A quiet side room of a maternity hospital in London on a grey afternoon, on a white enamel trolley a small hand-held audiometer about twenty-seven centimetres long, a cream-white cylinder widening into a flared horn at the front, underneath a black moulded hand grip with a small red press-button, three small knobs at the rear, the whole body plain, smooth and unmarked, a woman doctor's hand in a white coat sleeve holding it by the grip, beside the trolley an empty clear plastic hospital cot on a chrome stand with a folded white cellular blanket inside, a pale yellow wall, soft daylight through a half-drawn floral curtain.