Silence For the Dead

by Simone St. James

Books were a means to an end, even novels; for the more a person knew, the less she could be taken in.

I’d never had much education, but education, in my experience, was no match for doggedness. If I wanted to learn something, I was capable of studying it in a book until I understood it, no matter how long it took. In the end it was a matter of winning over the words that refused to obey, of comprehending them through sheer determination.

For the first time, alone on a dark floor with a semiconscious patient, I was struck by what I had done, what monstrous thing I was pretending. He could die in an instant and I could only look on, helpless.

Nurse Weekes. Nursing is a job, and not a glamorous one. You do not get to choose the patients you treat. No one will ever thank you or even tell you you’ve done well. Our only task, which we must perform from waking to sleeping, is to do our duty. That is the profession we’ve chosen.”

What had seemed prudish a few days earlier I now realized covered everything no matter what difficult position I found myself in. It was nice to know you could help a man vomit into a pitcher on the floor without showing him your calves or giving him a look down your blouse.

My mind was very good at this, at moving my hands and feet and working while the rest of me shut down. My life, for a short time, was happening to someone else, and so I got through one moment, and then another, and then another. You coward. My feelings were gone, gone.

I hated her with a hatred that was casual and often forgotten, but I also understood her.

I’m talking about knowledge, Jack. In order to win, you just have to know more than your opponent does.

A man fighting for his sanity had the energy only for the simple tasks of his daily life. Friendship was a luxury.