雙語·當呼吸化為空氣 當我身強體健時

第一部　當我身強體健時
PART I　In Perfect Health I Begin

耶和華的手在我身上，借他的靈帶我出去，將我放在布滿骸骨的山谷里，使我繞骸骨而行：看啊，這開闊山谷中，骸骨如此之多；神啊，它們多么干枯。
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

他對我說：“人子啊，這些骸骨可復活嗎？”
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?

——《圣經(jīng)·以西結書》
—Ezekiel 37:1–3, King James translation

我曾經(jīng)斬釘截鐵地認為，自己永遠也不會成為醫(yī)生。陽光下，我舒展著身體，躺在一片荒涼的高原上，我家房子就在下面。那天，我那個當醫(yī)生的叔叔和很多親戚一樣，問即將上大學的我未來想做什么工作，但我沒好好回答這個問題。要是有誰非要逼我說出個明確的答案，我可能會說作家吧。但是坦白說，這時候想工作啊事業(yè)啊，感覺都挺荒唐的。幾個星期以后，我就要離開這個亞利桑那州的小鎮(zhèn)了，一點也沒有要去闖蕩事業(yè)、節(jié)節(jié)高升的感覺，反而像一個忙碌嘈雜的電子，即將達到逃逸速度，要飛向一片陌生而星光閃爍的宇宙。
I knew with certainty that I would never be a doctor. I stretched out in the sun, relaxing on a desert plateau just above our house. My uncle, a doctor, like so many of my relatives, had asked me earlier that day what I planned on doing for a career, now that I was heading off to college, and the question barely registered. If you had forced me to answer, I suppose I would have said a writer, but frankly, thoughts of any career at this point seemed absurd. I was leaving this small Arizona town in a few weeks, and I felt less like someone preparing to climb a career ladder than a buzzing electron about to achieve escape velocity, flinging out into a strange and sparkling universe.