When we first met

I first met her when she joined the department, where I was working. The department where everyone came to work before anyone else, and only left when everyone did on most of the days.

MOs would start doing rounds even before HOs in other department left their house.

By the time the hospital buzzed into life, we would have been in the safe enclosure between four walls of clinics looking at black and white images of bones, and prescribing plenty of painkillers.

Or inside the anaesthetic gas-filled theatre, assisting surgeons drilling holes, knocking nails and turning screws.

It bothered me least as it allowed me to know her better.