The ambulance rolled the stretcher in, but the patient was already gone.
An attendant wrapped a barcoded band on the guy’s wrist, and a doctor tapped NEW PATIENT on his pad before tapping the red icon.
Ten hours later, the pathologist looked over the body.
NO PENICILLIN was tattooed on the guy’s ass.
He looked over the chart. Nothing about penicillin. Or anything.
No next of kin. Just his workplace listed as an emergency contact.
“Natural causes” he wrote on the form, and he cut open the chest cavity, weighed some organs, made some other measurements, and closed it up.