The Orange Bellows

A ward of a hospital in Stockholm on a winter morning before sunrise, deep blue light and snow on the window ledges, one warm ceiling lamp, beside an empty made bed a shoulder-high cabinet of pale green sheet metal with chipped paint on four castors, a sloping control strip with six black ribbed knobs and two round dials, plain with bare pointers, on top a chrome frame holding a tall glass cylinder with an orange-red rubber bellows half risen inside, a pink-red cap, valves, black corrugated hoses laid over the edge of the bed, every front plate plain and blank, a nurse's hand in a white sleeve turning a knob.