Date

6 August 2024 19:00:00

Location

Vienna

Country or Territory

Austria

Name

Prototype Automatic Ground Station Wien

Satellite

NOAA-19

ID

ow549

There was no satellite recording today because N was still troubleshooting the prototype ground station, so a bending of time, this recording is from tomorrow, the day of my operation. As I write this, I am waiting for the 'big day'. It’s raining, I can hear but not see the water cascade onto the hard facade the 1970s hospital building as the long curtains in my room are closed. Possibly for privacy or, I speculate, because the my roommate left for the operating theatre this morning when it was still dark. Either way the yellow glow of the artificial lights makes me groggy before anyone has even laid a finger on my body. A nurse searches for the word in English, “I will tie the bandage tight so as to stop a …. hema-toma." "Your vein opened too wide," she explains. "God", I say, "that sounds bad!" She reassures me, then sticks a cannula above my wrist where there seems too little flesh between skin and bone to cushion its intrusion. It stings. I watch my blood back flow into the two plastic tiny tubes. “I think that I’m going to throw up,” I say as a nurse announces lunch. I am given a cardboard bowl to throw up in and a tray with a clear soup, asparagus, rice, lettuce leaves, and a yogurt. I skip the yogurt and throwing up, and decide that I need sunlight. Opening the long curtains brings into view a drab but solid looking Altbau opposite. The rest of the day passes with time suspended between boredom, anxiety and grief, the sources of which I guess but chose not to give shape to with words.

Satellite not known.

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