16:53 <Quaker> Agostina woke again in the dark room. Her eyes went around before she thought of anything. A standing lamp was turned on in the corner. A woman, late middle-age, overweight, brown hair streaked with white pulled up in a bun standing next to the plastic sheeting that stood in for a door, her hand to her mouth in worry. She turned her head until the pain made her stop. More plastic sheeting over rough shapes, tools and buckets on rough wooden 16:53 <Quaker> shelving. Everything covered in a fine white dust. 16:53 <Quaker> A pair of hands turned her head back straight. 16:53 <Quaker> "Don't move your head." 16:53 <Quaker> She looked at a heavyset man suffering from exhaustion, dressed in blue scrubs. She blinked when he put a light in her eyes. 16:53 <Quaker> "Just move your eyes if you can understand me. Follow the tip of my finger." 16:54 <Quaker> She did. 16:54 <Quaker> "Good. Do you know where you are? Your name?" 16:54 <Quaker> She didn't know where she was. 16:54 <Quaker> "Agostina." 16:54 <Quaker> The man put on latex gloves and touched her head. The wheels of the small stool he sat on squeaked as he leaned forward. The woman in the doorway looked on. 16:55 <Quaker> "You've been unconscious for a day, Agostina. Somebody beat you badly, in a dead-end off Evita, four blocks from here." 16:55 <Quaker> The woman: "Why are we doing this here? Can't we take-" 16:55 <Quaker> The man: "No beds at the clinic. Rivadavia will give her some Tylenol and turn her out. Here is good as anywhere. Just wait." 16:56 <Quaker> He asked Agostina if it hurt when he pressed and prodded, about a dozen times on different spots on her body. She noticed, all at once, that she had clean bandages and gauze all over her body. 16:56 <Quaker> In a few minutes, the man took off his glovess and straightened. 16:56 <Quaker> "Okay. She shouldn't get worse." 16:57 <Quaker> The woman: "That's it?" 16:57 <Quaker> The man got out a notebook and wrote in it, explaining as he made the strokes. 16:57 <Quaker> "No skull fracture. You'll have to watch her for concussion symptoms the next few days. If she seems disoriented, forgetful, distracted, more than usual, come get me." 16:58 <Quaker> Pointing: "Bad bruising on her face, throat, and upper body, some lacerations but nothing deep. The stitches can come out in two weeks, and you should change the bandages once a day. Both her shoulders are strained, so she needs to rest them until the swelling goes away and it doesn't hurt to roll her shoulders. 16:58 <Quaker> Her knee was dislocated. Her hip, too, - she's lucky there, I put it back in place but I don't think there's anything else torn. If you notice any bad swelling there, come get me. Oh, and the left lateral incisor was smashed, that's out now, swelling in the mouth should go down in a few days." 16:59 <Quaker> He took a breath. 16:59 <Quaker> "Very lucky. Bad bruising all over, but..." 16:59 <Quaker> The man stood. 16:59 <Quaker> "I'll write a prescription for some painkillers. Tell Diego at the pharmacy that I said it's a special case. He'll give you something off the price." 16:59 <Quaker> Agostina was falling back asleep. 17:00 <Quaker> The woman was saying: "What do I feed her? I don't..." 17:00 <Quaker> The man was saying: "Just broth for day or two," before she closed her eyes. 17:00 <Quaker> She only woke a few times the next few days. Sometimes the woman was sitting next to her, prodding her mouth with a spoon. Sometimes she was alone and the sound of a machine came from the other room. 17:00 <Quaker> On the third day, she caught her voice long enough to say: "Agostina Badawi." 17:01 <Quaker> The woman stopped cutting up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into small pieces and nodded. "Maria Vera." 17:01 <Quaker> [...] 17:02 <Quaker> Agostina finished shoving the grogged clay into the pugmill with the long wooden stick and Maria closed the metal top. Maria clapped her on the shoulder while the little engine coughed up and shook the mixing cylinder. 17:03 <Quaker> "Is that it?" said Agostina. 17:04 <Quaker> "Not at all," said Maria. "Go grab that bag of feldspar, and that bag of cobalt oxide, and bring 'em here. Then go wedge that block of porcelain for me and roll it out to an inch thick slab. Uniform thickness, so it’s not bunched up at one end and too thin on the other. Use that rolling pin and go slow. 17:04 <Quaker> Agostina looked at the older woman. Maria tossed a respirator at her. 17:04 <Quaker> "And go open up the door and put that on. You don't want this shit in your lungs when I mix the glazes." 17:04 <Quaker> […] 17:04 <Quaker> Maria ashed her cigarette into the water bucket beside her potter's wheel as she watched Agostina roll out some coils by hand. 17:05 <Quaker> "Hey. Come here. Sit across from me. I'm going to show you how to throw a form." 17:05 <Quaker> The girl sat and watched her with dark eyes while the wheel spun. 17:05 <Quaker> […] 17:05 <Quaker> Maria counted out the bills and made to give them to the girl. Her hand stopped above Agostina's. 17:06 <Quaker> "I know you've been hanging out with Juan Jose. You friends or something now?" 17:06 <Quaker> Agostina did not change her expression. 17:06 <Quaker> "He's okay." 17:07 <Quaker> "He ain't okay. He's bad news. You want to end up passing out horse for him like everybody else?" 17:07 <Quaker> "He doesn't count his bills before dinner." 17:07 <Quaker> Maria stood and smoked her cigarette. 17:07 <Quaker> "No, he doesn't." 17:08 <Quaker> She handed the girl the money. "There's fifty there. You pick what you want us to eat for the week. Okay? Go down to Ojeda's and get what you want for dinner." 17:09 <Quaker> Agostina put the money in her pocket and watched Maria for a moment, before the girl turned and walked down street. Maria smoked as she went. The stained concrete on the sides and the galaxy of wires above the street seemed to tower over her at an angle, like she was entering a tunnel. 17:10 <Quaker> Maria sat down by her workbench. The only light in the small studio was the gas lamp. They needed all the power they had for the pugmill, anyway, and the refrigerator, and the little radio. She sat and listened to Jorge Cafrune for a while, and only doubled up coughing once. 17:10 <Quaker> She didnt hear Agostina come in, but the girl put the bags of groceries on the clean table by the entrance by Maria’s bed. She put a pair of choripanes on paper plates, and some tamales, and spooned some chimichurri over them, and finally some dulce de leche in a little Dixie cup. 17:11 <Quaker> "Can we eat outside?" she said. "I found some chairs yesterday." 17:11 <Quaker> They ate by the light of the signs of the scooter repair shop across the street, while Agostina showed Maria the patterns she had drawn that afternoon.