“What’s with this thing, this Safi thing? You know, this syrup thingy that is advertised as a blood purifier? What’s a blood purifier, besides a dialysis machine? A liver?”

Laugh. “I don’t know. Blood purifier, my ass! The stuff some people will buy, man, it amazes me.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“You know, speaking of dialysis, I saw this man once. He had an arterio-venous fistula.”

“Oh, an artificial one, for dialysis? Where?”

“Medicine, the cold wards.”

“Jeez, when was this? You should have told me, I’d have come taken a look at him too.”

“Nah, he had uremic encephalopathy. His kidneys had shut down, the fellow was jerking every time someone touched him. When I went to examine him, bugger caught my arm, gave me quite a start, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But the fellow died a few hours later. I thought I’d go take a look at him again, and I’d have taken you along. But when I asked, they said he’d died already.”

“Hmm.”

“But the arterio-venous fistula was quite characteristic, you know. Large, too. The pressure differential was huge, felt like there was an electric current there.”

“Damn. I wish I’d been there.”

“Yeah. It really was something.”