Phantom Quadrant presents:

Four fingers went down and at the count of six they jerked open the door to the ambulance. She laid a set of stockings around a pile of vomit and waited for the next ambulance. She was doing what she was told by the insurance company.

By the time the last ambulance came, Fred had had enough. He collapsed on the grass and asked me to get a chair. He had lost count of how many times we had driven around and fallen asleep at the wheel.

“Why’d you take me so far?” he said. “Where’s the hospital?”

I don’t know what he meant. Had I been bitten by a tick and they hadn’t been called? Or had I succumbed to the bad advice he had gotten from the