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October 30, 2001 an off-brand The Alhambra sits between a park and a hospital.  You have heard of the park with its roving gladiators and cocky squirrels.  Let me tell you now about the hospital. Until I moved here, I was unaware that ER-lounging was a popular pastime.  But there exists at St. Patrick's a perpetual gaggle of scruffy patients and their homeys none of whom would recognize urgency much less an emergency.  I think they enjoy belonging to anything, even the world of illness and injury.  They are good at pacing and twisting their faces into masks of mock despair.  Or maybe their withered brain stems are stimulated by the sound of sirens, the smell of disinfectant or the sight of technology conquering that which is natural.  I detect a subtle buoyancy when the automatic doors open as if by will rather than weight.  There is an off-brand of hope at work here.  It's feels like trust.  Or inertia.

©  2001 by the beastmaster