We were sitting in a darkened amphitheater facing each other, an elderly professor whose best friend is boredom and young candidate, eager to be in my place in a few decades. Scared, of course, how could he not be? I myself was nothing better than he when I was there a few decades earlier, in the same old chair made of one piece of oak. It was getting dark outside, but the candles were not lit yet, so the shadows of the trees in the yard made monstrous shadows in the soft light of the moon. He gathered the courage to start talking, I can see it in his eyes. I took the pipe out of my mouth and waved casually that he might begin. Strangely, it was always the hardest to answer this last question, why did you choose the medical profession? I guess no one expects us to actually ask them to answer something from the heart.
"Um, um ... I'm sorry ... So, when I was 13, my parents left my brother in my custody while they had to have a gala dinner at City Hall, some celebration of something I don't remember anymore. Of course, as is usually the case in Telemar, the celebrations lasted from morning until the next dawn. Since it was a hot summer afternoon, of which there were very few in our part of the world, I took my brother to the banks of the river Mernene. It seems to me that it was the warmest day since I remember any summer day. It seems to me that all the children of Telemar went out to the river. Countless groups of children bathed, alone or with their pets, as is the custom in our area. In some places, a group of women could be seen fishing with no result. The variety of children's clothes made a kind of show, as if it were a fair day. The dark red colors that were usually present in our culture unusually fit into the turquoise color of Mernena, unique in the whole world - as traveling traders claim. The laughter was thunderous and ubiquitous. I stood to the boys from our street, we were in the middle of a debate about whose greater right to the crown is in the hereditary order of our kingdom when I heard the scream. I realized then that my brother was not in the shallows next to me. I looked around in panic all around but I couldn’t notice him. The screaming continued and then I saw him, the little children took apart and he floated in water, face down, while his long curly hair scattered around him in a perfect circle. I ran towards him in panic, and the next thing I remember was sitting by the water, with his head in my lap, sobbing. And then a slave came out of the gathered crowd, he had a slave mark in his hand of the medical guild, he took him from my embrace, pushing me away along the way. I didn't even realize it then, but what he did was punishable by death, a slave must not violently touch a member of a noble family. He laid my brother on the sand and began to press his chest with violent movements. I watched him in the municipality, buried in the place. I could not react in any way. After a while, my brother woke up, and vomited half the river, it seems to me. He was crying, and I was numb by the deadness that overwhelmed me. While I calmed him down a bit, the slave got lost somewhere. I took my brother home, then my parents came back and they took him to the physician. I locked myself in the room and cried for a long, long time. When I cried the last drop of liquid I had in me, I began to think soberly. I tried to reconstruct every movement of the slave, I re-examined every second and from several angles, and I was sure that only his medical training helped my brother to stay alive today. I thought then that from my position, maybe I can enroll in the Academy, I started to be interested in the local guild of physicians about all kinds of information, and then I vowed. "I will learn how to help others, and I will improve that science in a way that no one before me has succeeded," he said breathlessly. Pride and security have now declared to me from his green eyes.
Of course, it was quite clear to me what fate awaited this boy.
In forming my response to your story I juxtapose two lines that serve (in my view) as narrative bookends:
From the first sentence:
And the last sentence:
The professor is tired, bored and perhaps disappointed in life. He projects this shadow of experience on the passionate optimism of the youth.
As for your last line...it is clear the fate that awaits the boy. Perhaps clear to the professor, but the professor does not have clear sight. He sees himself in the boy. But the boy may travel a different path, one with a different outcome. It may be that the young man does change medicine, or it may be that he just changes lives, a bit. This may be enough to sustain his optimism
A great story, with subtle touches that drew me in and made me reflect.
I just love how you always have great ideas and how you study the story thoroughly. It seems to me that you always experience it in person. Thanks for the nice words.
This is indeed a heartwarming story, I love how you set up the scene and the easy relationship between the old man and the young one.
Thank you for sharing, I'm glad I read it.
Thank you for reading, I am glad that you like it.
hmm,the story looks cool and great. Specially the plot is very real and visible as it is easy ti visualize in the mind.thanks for the piece.
Thanks, I hoped that it will turn that way, to be easy to understand and real! :)
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beautiful picture
What a beautiful story, @stormlight24. That experience, told by the young man to the sage perfectly illustrates how one can develop a passion for a life pursuit, such as life-saving medicine or medical practice.
There are some beautiful lines, like this one:
I love how you set the scene for the story, and how the older man gestures to the younger one with his pipe. Details like that pull us into a story and make us feel as though we are a part of it.
I always rejoice when I see your comment, because I know it is constructive and it always helps me to improve. I'm glad you like my style of writing, I just write the kind of works and stories I would like to read. :)
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