The Clear Helix

An operating theatre of a university hospital in Minneapolis early on a spring morning, pale green tiled walls, the round theatre lamp lit overhead, on a steel trolley a narrow upright frame eighty centimetres tall of four stainless steel rods on a base plate, in its centre a clear vertical plastic tube topped by a milky-white cylinder, around the frame a thick glass-clear plastic tube wound in a wide helix of three turns, held by small steel clamps, a yellowish rubber tube running down inside, lamp light gleaming in the coils, beside it a small grey pump housing, every tube empty and bright, two hands in pale rubber gloves at a tube clamp.