Seventy-Three

The Englishman still lies rigid on the mountainface, and the old Sherpa can imagine him already connected to a multitude of prosthetic devices. Nothing complicated: a cast, an intravenous pain reliever, the drip of the IV…

The IV, the old Sherpa thinks, is used less frequently than one might think. It’s a fiendishly practical invention. It’s impossible to comprehend how Fordism squandered its applications. It would have been ideal to place on industrial assembly lines. An IV drip for every worker. Communion around the provision of proteins that reaches the bloodstream of the working class and constructs a new society. Strong, hopeful. The women – their hair gathered up with clasps, with elastic bands, inside brightly coloured handkerchiefs – arrive at the factory, punch their cards, put their gloves on, place the catheter in their right forearm, and a new day in the productive cycle has begun. Outside, the men, their wars, the Angelus Novus regarding the ruins of history… Ah, progress. What little has been done on its behalf.