This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow Page B

four swallows of acid. A coughing fit possessed him, and he expectorated onto the pillow case. Dots of blood were suspended in the sputum. ‘And a daughter,’ he rasped. ‘I’m supposed to tell her a story about an elf who casts a golden shadow.’ He struggled to sit up, collapsed in a heap of pain and fatigue. ‘Ice shelf? Submarine? You mean – under the water? Why are there purple spots on my hands? What’s in my throat?’
    ‘The spots indicate intradermal bleeding. The things in your throat are infected tonsils. My name is Morning Valcourt. I’m a psychotherapist, and I intend to help you.’
    George coughed, less severely than before. He vibrated with fever. His lungs felt as bloated as unmilked udders.
    After strapping a surgical mask over her face, Dr Valcourt pushed back a corner of the tent and entered.
    One glance was enough to disprove George’s angel theory. A silk kimono enveloped a body that was decidedly secular. The woman’s eyes were a saturated blue-green, her hair thick and red like the coils in the electric heaters back at the Crippen Monument Works. Six days unconscious, is that what she said? Then he had missed his Monday appointment with Mrs Covington.
    ‘What you must realize . . . just after you were evacuated, another warhead found its target. Direct hit.’ She came closer, her mask pulsing with her breaths. ‘Nobody except you got out of Wildgrove. Do you understand?’
    His dislike of Dr Valcourt was not far from disgust. How did she know whether anybody got out? What right had she to speak of such things?
    She pulled away and stepped backward, so that the plastic veil parted and then dropped, walling them off from each other once again.
    ‘Please kill me,’ he said, quoting the Wildgrove burn victims as calmly as if asking for a glass of water.
    Dr Valcourt paced behind the milky tent. She seemed to emanate from an unfocused movie projector. ‘My job is not to kill you, but to cure you.’
    ‘Of radiation sickness?’
    ‘Of shame. Survivor’s guilt, it’s called. To live through a disaster like this, where so many died – it’s a terrible burden on your psyche.’
    ‘Where are we going?’
    ‘Home.’
    ‘Wildgrove?’
    ‘Antarctica.’
    ‘Please leave me alone.’
    ‘Here’s a straight opinion for you, Mr Paxton. That’s something you won’t often get from a psychotherapist – especially from a survivor’s guilt specialist – so listen carefully. I think you have a duty to learn why your name is in the McMurdo Sound Agreement. After you have found out – do what you will. Eat, drink, and be merry – or curse God, and die. I don’t especially care which.’
    There were footsteps, and the distasteful psychotherapist melted away . . .
    Curse God , and die . In the Book of Job, the Lord’s most pious follower is subjected to a kind of wager between God and Satan. With God’s sponsorship, Satan inflicts on Job everything short of a thermonuclear warhead. Job loses his oxen, sheep, camels, sheasses, servants, sons, and health.
    ‘Curse God, and die,’ his wife advises. Job is sitting on ashes at the time.
    ‘My bowels boil, and rest not,’ complains Job, who does not have the proverbial patience of Job. ‘I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches. My skin is black, and falleth from me, and my bones are burned with the heat. Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep.’
    Curse God, and die . To George it seemed like remarkably sage and relevant advice.
    If one had to say something good about acute radiation sickness, it would be this: either it kills you or it doesn’t. Knowing that success was a distinct possibility, the medical staff of the City of New York got busy. They cultured George’s mucus, blood, and stool, then loaded him up with appropriate antibiotics. They stuck a tube in his arm and gave him a new set of white blood cells. They bathed him in antiseptic solutions every twelve hours,