Late Night Hospitals I have been set to thinking about hospitals at night - of which I have seen far too many. The corridors are what come to mind. At night these are odd arteries of care, with their glossy floors, smooth bland walls, inoffensive artworks, and dull ceiling tiles. The corridors are very different at night. The smell of hospitals remains the same day after day, month after month. I no longer smell hospitals - but I was told that I used to smell of hospitals when I came home. To me it is a neutral, natural scent. It is the sounds and sense of the corridors that change. During 8, 12 or 15 hours of the 24 the corridors absorb, reflect and echo with the footsteps, voices and uniforms of the cogs of the machine - the consultants & cleaners, the managers & malingerers, the thieves & therapists, the nurses & chaplains, the scientists & accountants. At night while walking the hospital corridors you are alone - except for that extremely polite young man with his buffing machine and its impossibly long power cable, and, the ever present watchers of the CCTV. Hospitals are never silent, never without artificial light, but at night they are singularly unusual places.