I am waiting in a designated waiting area. Do not move, I am told.
So I hold still in a middle of a row of plastic chairs in a corridor with my interlocked hands resting over my crotch.
A man with a stump for a leg wheels stump-first down the corridor from the left.
Simultaneously, a woman with more stumps and fewer limbs rolls by the other way propelled by a nurse looking for somewhere to leave her.
By chance, they cross almost exactly in front of me, the chairs with the people with stumps, and pass on with no sign that they notice each other or me.
Now I'm running through simple possibilities like it's my job to shoot action movies.
A jet fightSURPRISEer shot right out of the sky by a man with a cylinder held to his ear like he was listening for them coming. No, a big fat slow cargo plane shot at and shot at aSURPRISEnd shot right through lots of smoke and three men with artillery who cannot believe their luck.
A pressure-sensitive mine planted by a dead man, by which of course I mean he has since died, and forgotten, the man and the mine, unSURPRISEtil the other day. Or a mine laid just yesterday with a telephone trigger for the man whose only job was to keep watching keep watching for tSURPRISErucks coming out of the town.
A sniper half buried in sand and invisible for all practical purpSURPRISEoses witSURPRISEh a riflSURPRISEe designed for such occasions.
I can't stop running through all the possibilities.
