Chapter 2 Section 1

January 11 The person lying on the hospital bed turned around slightly and let out a muffled grunt. The nurse in charge of the ward got up from her desk and walked over to him.She helped him adjust the bolster and moved him into a more comfortable position. Andrew Macwhite grunted his thanks. He was in a state of grief and rebellion. At this time, everything should have become a thing of the past.He should have been freed already!That ghost tree popping off the edge of the fucking cliff is damn it!Those couples who braved the cold of winter nights to meet on the edge of the cliff were damned.

If it hadn't been for them (and the tree), it would have been all over long ago--to plunge into that cold deep water, to struggle perhaps, and then all was lost--a useless life ended. Where is he now, with a broken shoulder, lying absurdly in a hospital bed, waiting to be charged by the police with an "attempted suicide". Damn it, his life is his own, isn't it? If he succeeds in suicide, they will reverently bury him as a man who committed suicide insane! Insane, really!He had never been so lucid, and suicide was the most reasonable and logical thing for someone in his position to do.

Down and out, unlucky to the extreme, poor health for many years, his wife left him and ran away with other men.Without work, without warmth, without money, health, or hope, surely taking one's life is the only possible escape? But now he is lying here, falling into this ridiculous situation.Soon he will be reprimanded by magistrates who pretend to be holy for attempting to take his own life. He was so angry that his nose roared several times, and his body became hot for a while. The nurse came to him again. She was young, with red hair and a kind, slightly dazed face. "Does it hurt?"

"No, it doesn't hurt." "I'll give you some medicine to eat and sleep well." "No." "But--" "Do you think I can't stand the pain and sleep?" She smiled a little haughtily. "The doctor said you can take some sleeping pills." "I don't care what the doctor says." She pulled the covers back for him while she moved a glass of lemonade a little closer to him.He was a little embarrassed. He said, "Sorry, I was so rude." "Oh, never mind." She was completely immune to his tantrums, which disturbed him, and his tantrums couldn't penetrate her nurse's armor of "apathy."He's a patient -- not a person.

He said: "Fucking meddling—it's all fucking meddling..." She said reproachfully, "Well, well, that's very bad manners." "Good?" he asked. "Good? My God." She said quietly, "You'll feel better in the morning." He swallowed. "You nurses. You nurses! You are not human at all!" "We know what's best for you, you know." "That's what makes people mad! You, the hospital, the world, keep meddling! Know what's best for other people. I tried to kill myself, you know?" She nodded. So whether I jump off the cliff or not is my own business, and I don't do other people's business, I'm fed up.I am down and out, unlucky to the extreme! "

She made a little click of her tongue in abstract sympathy.He is a patient.The ground was letting him vent. "What's wrong with me if I want to kill myself?" he asked. She answered his question quite seriously. "Because that's not right." "Why not?" She looked at him suspiciously.Her own beliefs have not been disturbed, but she has a rather "unspeakable" sense of her own perceptions. "It's—I mean—suicide is immoral. Whether you like it or not, you have to go on living." "why?" "Oh, you have to think of other people, don't you?"

"I have nothing to think about. There is no one in this world who will be harmed by my absence." "Don't you have any relatives? No mother or sister or anything?" "No, I had a wife once, but she left me—she was right! She knew I was useless." "But you always have some friends?" "No, I don't. I'm not a friend. Listen, Miss Nurse, I'll tell you. I was a happy guy with a good job and a beautiful wife. Then I had a car accident , my boss drove the car and I was in the car. He wanted me to say he was driving thirty miles an hour when the accident happened. It wasn't true. He was driving close to fifty miles an hour. No one was hurt or killed. That's not the case , he just wanted to file a claim with the insurance company. I didn't do what he asked. That was a lie. I never lie."

The nurse said, "I think you're right, quite right." "You really think so, don't you? But I lost my job for my stubbornness. My boss was pissed off. He fired me and managed to keep me from getting another job. My wife was pissed off." See me slumping around all day and night and can't find any work. She ran away with a friend of mine. He was doing well and getting ahead. I was going downhill. I started to drink, but nothing No way to get a job, and I ended up with an alcohol addiction - broke my internal organs - and the doctor told me there would never be a way back. At that point there was nothing left to live on, the easiest and cleanest way It’s all about death, and my life is nothing I value for myself or anyone else.”

The little nurse murmured, "It's hard to say." He laughed out loud.He is in a better mood now.Her innocent obstinacy amused him. "My dear girl, what use am I to anybody?" She panicked him and said: "It's hard to say. You might be useful—one day..." "One day, there won't be such a day. Next time I'll be sure." She shook her head decisively. "Oh no," she said, "you don't kill yourself now." "Why the next meeting?" Will he do it again?Did he really want to kill himself? All of a sudden, he knew he wouldn't do it again.For no reason, perhaps the exact reason she said out of her special knowledge, one does not commit suicide repeatedly.

In doing so, however, he felt more determined to force her to admit that he had a moral right to kill himself. "Anyway, my life is my own, and I have the right to do whatever I want with it." "No—no, you don't have that right." "But why haven't I, my dear girl, why?" She blushed; playing with her fingers on the little gold cross that hung round her neck, she said: "You don't understand. God may need you." He stared wide-eyed—startled.He didn't want to disturb her childlike faith.He mocked him and said: "I think one day I might stop a galloping horse and save the life of a little blond kid on it—is that so? Huh?"

She shook her head.She tried her best to express the very clear but hard to express thoughts in her heart. "Maybe just somewhere--doing nothing--just being somewhere--well, I can't say what I mean, but you might just--walk down the street one day, and So something very important just happened to be done—maybe not even knowing what." The redheaded nurse is from Scotland's west coast, and some of her family members have "clarity". Perhaps, she vaguely foresaw a scene, a man walked on a road on a September night, thus saving a life from a tragic death...