Not for resuscitation

The dinner trolley rattled past Maud's cubicle without stopping.

- Eileen Merriman

"I'm starving," she called out, but was ignored as usual. Everyone in this place ignored her, unless they were sticking needles in her or prodding her stomach for the millionth time.

"I'm dying!" Maud yelled. A doctor who barely looked old enough to do up his own shoelaces scuttled past, flicking her a bemused glance. "I'm not for resuscitation anyway!" Maud thought she heard a titter from the next cubicle, but perhaps she was imagining that.

"Orderly." A little man in orange sneakers whipped her off to a ward. It smelt of overcooked food and bodily excretions. In fact, the whole place reminded her of a zoo, with the visiting hours and weird noises.

"Do I get any dinner?" Maud asked once she'd been dumped in a four-bedded room with high windows. Even if she could have seen above the sill, the glass looked as though it hadn't ever been cleaned.

"Ring your nurse," the orderly said, and left.

Maud searched around for the call bell, but it was nowhere to be seen. She sighed. "I'm not for resuscitation," she said into the void.

"Neither am I," said a voice from the next bed. Maud squinted at the girl, whose hair was peacock blue.

"Don't be silly," Maud said. "How old are you, fifteen?"

"Eighteen," the girl said. "Unfortunately." She sank beneath the covers with her phone, probably to do a selfie or tweet about something.

"I'm eighty-four," Maud said, wishing she knew how to tweet. Maybe the girl could teach her.

"Help," said the white-haired woman in the bed opposite her.

"I would if I could find my call bell," Maud said.

"Help," the woman repeated in a forlorn tone. Demented, Maud decided, casting around for the magazine she'd swiped out of the GP's waiting room when she'd made the mistake of going in about her skin.