The Diagonal Cabinet

An operating theatre of a Boston hospital on an early October morning, white tiled walls, an operating lamp glowing overhead, an operating table under smooth white sheets, beside it a hip-high cabinet on four castors, its front and doors veneered in honey-coloured wood laid in diagonal stripes, on top a sloping panel with four lever switches with black ball grips and a row of sockets, from one side a curved tube mast carrying black cables in a high arc to a slender hand electrode with a bent black grip, held by a hand in a pale rubber glove above a steel trolley, a round foot switch on the tiled floor.