If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

A man running with a weighted rucksack on his back.

An alleyway with three boys playing basketball, a spokeless wheel for a hoop.

A shop window with a hole the size of a small marble.

A boy in a skip swinging a skinned umbrella around his head.

The ambulance passes on through this city, on through it all, a flash of attention trailing behind it, a fading scorch through a hot afternoon, on past the river, on past the arches, on past the factories and workshops and retail estates, on past the endless rows of anonymous terraced houses, on, finally on, to the last of the roads, past the carparks and signposts and entrance gates, straight through to the emergency doors of the waiting hospital.

And as these streets are travelled, in the time it takes for a hand to be clasped and unclasped, Shahid Mohammed Nawaz wakes gently, lifted through a gap in the way of things.

And at the entrance to the hospital grounds, four queues of traffic sit facing each other, trapped by traffic lights which have synchronised red for the ambulance to pass, dozens of feet resting on accelerators, dozens of pairs of eyes hanging on the lights.

All waiting for the amber.

All waiting for the green.