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I fret for the children." "Ah," he said. "The children. Your job in the Corp." I said nothing in reply and he said not another word until the middle of the night when I drifted into sleep momentarily, for all my sleep was momentary, and opened my eyes to the lamp light and the cold hospital air. I pulled a Kleenex from the box beside my bed and coughed blood into it. "You are getting better," he said. "I'm dying," I said. "No. You are getting better. You hardly cough at all. Your sleep is longer. You used to cough all night." "You’re a doctor, I suppose?" "No, but I am a soldier. Or was. Now I am a useless old man with no arm." "In the old days a man your age would have been retired or put behind a desk. Not out on the front lines." "I suppose you’re right. But this is not the old days. This is now, and I’m finished anyway because of the arm." "And I'm finished because of my wound." "The lungs heal faster than anything. You are only finished if you are too bitter to heal. To be old and bitter is all right. It greases the path to the other side. To be young and bitter is foolish." "How do you know so much about me?" "I listen to the nurses and I listen to you and I observe." "Have you nothing else to do but meddle in my affairs?" "No." "Leave me be." "I would if I could, but I’m an old man and will not live long anyway, wounded or not I have the pains of old age and no family and nothing I would be able to do if I leave here. All I know is the life of a soldier.
Approximate Word count = 1179
Approximate Pages = 4.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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