[Maybe he should. But he's never been good at shutting up, especially not when it kind of seems like someone might need to talk.]
I've got you beat there. I haven't had a regular heartbeat for, oh, five years?
But I don't mean It's not about whether the curse or the miracle was for real. A lot of the miracles we did at the M.A.S.H. were real miracles, by anyone's measure. Scientific, not magic, sure, but we had a 95% survival rate, and if you ask anyone in the field, that's a goddamn miracle. But then you see the kids you stitch up trying to learn how to walk with one leg and half their guts gone, or you see them pack the ambulance back to the front, and even the most bona fide miracles just don't feel that miraculous.
Does that make any sense? It's been a long day. Long few years, I guess.
What I'm trying to say, the thing with miracles, is that they don't get you very far. And they don't care what happens after the miracle, or what you did to get there. And if you do 95% of a miracle, you didn't do crap.
But the way you're talking about it, it's like you think you got cursed BECAUSE you decided it was worth being alive, and, I don't know, maybe you did. I'm not a wizard. I'm just a meatcutter. But I've seen a lot of people who got less "cursed" and more "shot in the belly and doused with napalm", and it's pretty striking how much you sound like some of the kids I did miracles on back in the day.
Christ. I don't know. I'm not a goddamn shrink, either, even when I try to be. And I didn't mean to tell you my life story, either. I'm going to go annoy the cop and leave you alone.
[Another long pause, before the need to say something gets too much, and he grabs his computer and quickly types one more thing.]
Tea and empathy. I know chaplains can be full of crap but Mulcahy was right about that one. And I know you probably don't want to talk but if you ever do I'm pretty good at keeping schtum
[...Against all the evidence of him continuing to type.]
<whichdoctor>
I've got you beat there. I haven't had a regular heartbeat for, oh, five years?
But I don't mean
It's not about whether the curse or the miracle was for real. A lot of the miracles we did at the M.A.S.H. were real miracles, by anyone's measure. Scientific, not magic, sure, but we had a 95% survival rate, and if you ask anyone in the field, that's a goddamn miracle. But then you see the kids you stitch up trying to learn how to walk with one leg and half their guts gone, or you see them pack the ambulance back to the front, and even the most bona fide miracles just don't feel that miraculous.
Does that make any sense? It's been a long day. Long few years, I guess.
What I'm trying to say, the thing with miracles, is that they don't get you very far. And they don't care what happens after the miracle, or what you did to get there. And if you do 95% of a miracle, you didn't do crap.
But the way you're talking about it, it's like you think you got cursed BECAUSE you decided it was worth being alive, and, I don't know, maybe you did. I'm not a wizard. I'm just a meatcutter. But I've seen a lot of people who got less "cursed" and more "shot in the belly and doused with napalm", and it's pretty striking how much you sound like some of the kids I did miracles on back in the day.
Christ.
I don't know. I'm not a goddamn shrink, either, even when I try to be. And I didn't mean to tell you my life story, either. I'm going to go annoy the cop and leave you alone.
[Another long pause, before the need to say something gets too much, and he grabs his computer and quickly types one more thing.]
Tea and empathy. I know chaplains can be full of crap but Mulcahy was right about that one. And I know you probably don't want to talk but if you ever do I'm pretty good at keeping schtum
[...Against all the evidence of him continuing to type.]