It’s hard not to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. Especially when you’re stuck in an emergency room with nothing else to do .
For several hours it had all been pretty mundane stuff, Aches and pains. Nothing to take my mind off my probably broken wrist. The crowd were elderly, apart from the girl sitting directly behind me, head covered with bandages. She’d been minding her own business, tapping away on her phone, until her father entered.
‘Bloody Hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened?’
She’d tripped while running for a train, she explained, needed forty stitches.
‘Were you wearing those bloody heels?’ he demanded. ‘ You were, I know you were. I told you those things were lethal. I’m throwing them out as soon as I get home.’
‘Ah don’t Da,’ she begged. ‘Sure they cost me two week’s wages.’
‘I’ll cut them to pieces!’ he declared. ‘I’ll burn them in the garden!’
‘Jaysus Da,’ she wailed. ‘It was just an accident.’
‘You’ll never see them again,’ he pronounced, turning to leave. ‘I’m off to do away with them.’
The girl, suddenly aware that she was the centre of attention, slunk down in her chair and hid behind her phone.