The Bedside Tablet

A power cut. I woke in a room lit only by the red pulse of the emergency lamps. My head is splitting, and even who I am comes to me blurred. The patient band on my wrist has been wiped blank. The tablet by the bed is the only light still alive. The screen wants patient identification. I tap at the keys and nothing about myself comes back to me — but a nameplate at the head of the bed catches my eye. Someone scratched it out in a hurry, and over the scoring, the ghosts of four digits remain. Whoever erased it wanted me not to see this.