Let's get out of here

After VPSN Midnight Surgeon leaves—hopefully to get some sleep—one of the nurses hands me a form to sign. Of course, it’s all in Arabic, so I look to Daniel for a translation, hoping the form is not a hospital request for the donation of one of my kidneys. Still harbouring nagging concerns about my credit card transaction being rescinded, I figure that the hospital may consider a kidney to be adequate compensation for my two-day visit. 

Daniel reads the form and tells me it’s for the thermometer. Okay then, I sign for the thermometer, not knowing why I have to sign for the thermometer. I give the form back to the nurse, who then solemnly presents me with the oral thermometer that had been residing in my bedside table. Again looking at Daniel with what I imagine to be a big question mark on my face, he informs me that the Heat Measuring Device is now mine. Well! My first souvenir from Egypt is not exactly what I had envisioned. I don’t particularly want it, but it being an oral instrument, its manufacturer would not endorse me telling anyone where to stick it other than its intended target. Not that I would anyway, being a nice, well-mannered, polite, cursed, and now, damaged tourist.

With my prized oral HMD in hand, we leave the room and take the elevator to the ground floor, aiming for the cashier’s office to pay for the crutches and cast, expenses which had not been included in the original charges. On the way down, the elevator makes an unscheduled stop. 

The door opens and a man on crutches enters the lift. Instead of wearing a nice black and silver walking cast like mine, his lower leg is covered in metal, like a limb conquered by alien alloys after a fierce battle. Two steel rings, one encircling his ankle, the other surrounding his leg just below the knee, are held together by thick rods. The archaic-looking brace is secured in place by means of long pins piercing his skin—and bones—at regular intervals. 

Lugging around this cumbersome, and no doubt pain-inducing, hardware should be somewhat upsetting, yet, the man’s demeanour is unexpected. Instead of exuding any sense of distress, pain, misery, or even angst, he appears totally nonplussed, as if the trauma to his leg is no more bothersome than a mosquito bite. He’s as comfortable with the iron leg girdle as if he had been wearing it his whole life, and maybe he has. And maybe that’s the reason for his relaxed manner.

Nodding to me, in greeting, he also flashes me a gigantic smile. Returning the smile, I count my blessings at warp speed. Yup, yup, yup, someone worse off than I, definitely. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if this gentleman considered himself luckier than others, given his beatific disposition. 

I silently wonder where he’s headed at this time of the night. As if on cue, the elevator stops at the next floor, the door opens, and the man with the crutches exits, taking with him his aura of tranquility. I catch a glimpse of a bilingual sign (English/Arabic) on the wall, listing three enigmatic departments, with arrows pointing the way to each destination. 

Tranquility Man takes the direction of the “Mould Unit”, which could be a good thing. Maybe he’s getting rid of the iron girdle for something more “moulded”, like a cast—needless to say, another important activity requiring midnight scheduling. On the other hand, the “Mould Unit” might be a room full of fungus, ready to attack the poor man and turn him into a walking—well, crutching—mushroom. 

The other two cryptic departments, in the opposite direction, don’t appear any more benign than the Mushroom Room, and I’m quite certain that it wouldn’t have boded well for Tranquility Man had he taken that route. I fear either of the “Linear Accelerator” or the “Simulator” would have thoroughly and permanently messed up his sense of calm, along with half of his DNA. 

Dwelling on this issue, my logical and analytical mind conjures up two perfectly natural explanations for these unusual and slightly creepy—at midnight, everything’s creepy—departmental labels. 

Theory Number 1: The signs must be the regrettable result of a very bad—failed, really—Arabic to English translation. Mould Unit, Linear Accelerator, and Simulator are, in reality, the Cafeteria, Gift Shop, and Lounge. Tranquility Man is headed to the Cafeteria for a latte.

Theory Number 2: This hospital is incredibly more sophisticated than its meagre ER department leads one to believe, offering radiation treatments, cardiac catheterization and open heart surgery, neurosurgery, and renal transplants, to list just a few. Later on, I find out that this is in fact the case. I have to admit, in spite of all the weirdness, the care I received was very good. 

We reach the cashier’s office which, after midnight, is inevitably locked. With my mind-blowing powers of soothsaying, I had predicted this, saying to Daniel and VPSN Midnight Surgeon at the end of his visit earlier, “At this time of the night, the office will surely be closed.”

Their simultaneous response had been, “If there’s money to be collected, there’ll be someone to collect it, even at this hour.”

The office is sealed tighter than the vaults at Fort Knox, and the corridor is deserted. I sit patiently in my chair while Daniel goes in search of humans. Abruptly, I wake up at the approaching sound of voices. Checking my watch, only a few minutes have elapsed, yet, in that very short time, I managed to sleep and weave two complete carpets. Granted, my carpets are small. 

A gentleman with a large key ring unlocks the office, and Daniel, steering the chair, ushers me in. More credit card swiping, transaction signing, and “good day” wishing. I sure hope this one sticks. Mind you, it’ll be a good day if we just manage to get out of here; I’ve had enough craziness over the past few days to last me a lifetime, and then some. I mentally urge Daniel to put the wheelchair in third gear so we can quickly get out of this place. 

We leave the hospital and discover that another strange, but not unwelcome, thing has happened: there’s no traffic. The ride which took half an hour on the way to the hospital is now a five minute hop back to the hotel. With my new crutches, I gladly return to my room to pack my bags, a process of carefully and delicately shoving everything helter-skelter into the suitcases, then kicking the bags with my good leg to the door. It’s after two o’clock in the morning when I finally fall into bed for a few hours of much needed sleep.

Tomorrow—technically, later today—I will be unleashed on Alexandria.