雙語·當呼吸化為空氣 露西到機場接我

露西到機場接我。但一直等回了家，我才把壞消息告訴她。我們坐在沙發(fā)上。我開口對她一說，她就知道了。她把頭靠在我肩上，我們之間的距離都消失了。
Lucy picked me up from the airport, but I waited until we were home to tell her. We sat on the couch, and when I told her, she knew. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and the distance between us vanished.

“我需要你?！蔽逸p聲低語。
“I need you,” I whispered.

“我永遠不會離開你?！彼f。
“I will never leave you,” she said.

我們給一個好朋友打了電話，請他收治我。他是醫(yī)院的神經(jīng)外科主治醫(yī)生。我拿到了所有病人都必須戴的塑料手環(huán)，穿上熟悉的淺藍色病號服，走過那些我都叫得出名字的護士，住進了一間病房——多年來，我在這里見過成百上千個病人。正是在這間病房里，我坐在病人身邊，解釋我最終的診斷和復雜的手術(shù)；正是在這間病房里，我祝賀病人痊愈，見證他們回歸正常生活的幸福；正是在這間病房里，我宣布病人死亡。我曾在椅子上坐過，我曾在水槽里洗過手，我曾在通知板上寫下過潦草的說明，我曾把日歷翻到新的一頁。甚至，在完全筋疲力盡時，我還曾經(jīng)渴望過，可以躺在這床上好好睡一覺。
We called a close friend, one of the attending neurosurgeons at the hospital, and asked him to admit me.I received the plastic arm bracelet all patients wear, put on the familiar light blue hospital gown, walked past the nurses I knew by name, and was checked in to a room—the same room where I had seen hundreds of patients over the years. In this room, I had sat with patients and explained terminal diagnoses and complex operations; in this room, I had congratulated patients on being cured of a disease and seen their happiness at being returned to their lives; in this room, I had pronounced patients dead. I had sat in the chairs, washed my hands in the sink, scrawled instructions on the marker board, changed the calendar. I had even, in moments of utter exhaustion, longed to lie down in this bed and sleep.

現(xiàn)在，我就躺在這床上，很清醒。
Now I lay there, wide awake.

一個我不認識的年輕護士在門口探進頭來。
A young nurse, one I hadn’t met, poked her head in.

“醫(yī)生馬上就到?！?br>“The doctor will be in soon.”

于是乎，我想象中的未來，就要實現(xiàn)的未來，那么多年奮斗即將迎來的人生巔峰，都隨著這句話消失了。
And with that, the future I had imagined, the one just about to be realized, the culmination of decades of striving, evaporated.