Night shift

What the waiting room looks like at night

The corridor of the emergency centre, empty, for four minutes, the only four minutes of the week.

People think a night in the emergency centre is shouting and sirens. For most of the time it is a quiet corridor with a green floor. The smell: chlorine, tea, something fried from the canteen. The sounds: a man coughing, a mother with a child asleep on her shoulder, the radio of the ambulance crew who are drinking tea by the door.

Then one door opens, and the whole corridor wakes at the same time.