A little normality in this world of scrubs
Hospitals are hostile places, not because you aren't welcomed there or tortured for fun, no, hospitals are hostile by nature: they are entirely focused on care, and patient comfort is not always a priority. This isn't a criticism, it's a fact, it's just the way it is. No one wants to spend the night in an MRI room, and no one has any plans to furnish their bedroom with one of those electric beds. So you take whatever comes close to basic normality and make the best of it.
In Cochin, one such place is the cafeteria, just inside the entrance on Rue St Jacques. There you can find newspapers, crossword puzzles, sandwiches, candy, chargers, Van Houten chocolate, cookies—all the things that keep your spirits up. It also has a terrace that becomes very cool as soon as the sun comes out. It's the least connoted place to receive visitors, less creepy than a room, better located than the café across the street since you're not really allowed to go out anyway, and the only place where visitors, caregivers, and patients mix and talk about whatever they want without worrying about who's listening. Sometimes it's pretty funny. It's also the only place where you see children playing, talking to their parents, coming up talking to you. A normal place, basically...
I spent quite a few hours there making phone calls, seeing friends, daydreaming, waiting for Hassan (my taxi driver). It was all the easier because Cornil-Brissaud is the building next door: you cross the alley and you arrive in hot chocolate land, the perfect drink when the sun is shining but it's still winter. There's another one in Achard, but it's just an addition to the ground floor, a bit like a café in the subway: it has no business being there, you don't want to have a coffee in a subway corridor and you don't want to go outside to drink your drink sitting on the curb. So even when I was in Achard with M, I would cross the hospital to the cafeteria at the entrance, because it takes you out of the hospital for the short while of a snack.
Next Chapter »
