Flash Fiction

The Quarry Hospital was, as its name suggests, built in a quarry. A dormant quarry, a nonworking quarry. The hospital itself didn't work either. It was built hurriedly at a time of great national emergency. Each ward in the hospital is laid out in the same manner. Six beds with wrought iron bedsteads, serviceable mattresses and hard wearing bedding. At the end of each ward, there is a clock. A large Smith's Practical. A clock that ticks very loudly. There are eight wards that make up the hospital. All access is from a central corridor. The corridor has at each end a reception area controlling all access to the wards. The Quarry Hospital is of the functional design born from necessity.

All clocks on all wards and their seemingly matching clocks in each reception all tick and often tock in unison. All clocks though, tell different times. Not only different times but each ward exists on different dates and times. This is why the hospital didn't work well.

It may work but anyone who entered the ward never came out. This included staff and visitors. It is believed, if not fully proven, that the different times are all some distance into our futures.

When a ward requires a new patient a light flashes above each ward entrance. Green for a patient. Blue for a new staff member. If the light flashes green to blue the ward requires new visitors. This was determined after initial trial and error by the powers that be. The same powers that built the hospital in a such a highly debatable place in the first place. But it is the only hospital that consistently meets all of its targets.