. . ,” recites the man in time to the rhythm marked by the machine, apparently indifferent to the loop formed by the two plastic tubes through which his blood is circulating. Dozing in the imitation-leather armchair, “in-put, out-put; in-put, out-put . . . ,” he keeps his right hand on his forehead without noticing that, outside, a new day has begun under a weak sun, soft and frosted like the skin of a winter orange. A dirty light pours over the city through the clouds, but the man is unable to see this, since the dialysis room still gives off an impression of night, as if it hadn’t dawned yet, and this appearance is due to the light coming from the fluorescent tubes, which radiate the ancient luminosity of a classroom. It’s already after nine. The patients have been connected to the machines for an hour. The voices of the nurses gathered around their coffee in an adjoining room form a distant counterpoint to the soft, monotonous noise of the machines and the sighs and coughs of the patients who are asleep, or listening to the radio with earphones, or doing like the man, who keeps his left arm still on the armrest while mumbling “in-put, out-put; in-put, out-put.”
