The Distant Console

An operating theatre of a London teaching hospital at dawn, cool white ceiling light, in front a bulky surgeon's console of blue-grey and light grey with a hooded viewer of two eyepieces, below it open hand-grip mechanisms and five black foot pedals on a blue base, two hands in pale blue gown sleeves resting in the grips, across the room a patient cart on a blue wheeled base, a black central column carrying light grey rounded jointed arms, three of them ending in black instrument carriages, one with a green top bar and one with a red, poised over an empty operating table with a smooth green sheet, every surface plain and unmarked.