I walked away from the scene of the accident, with a slightly awkward step, as if I were in a semi-drunk state. Of course, I wasn't drunk, I and all the residents of the city of Trimale knew that I didn't even go near the tavern and that I publicly hated such places. I was deeply shaken by what had happened a little earlier that morning. It was neither the first nor the last such scene in my professional and private work. Some strange disease catches the horse's mind and he goes mad. The accident was that this time it happened on a full market, and one of the victims was a child this time. A sad and above all disgusting sight. They didn't even have to be call me up, my office was two streets away, and I could already recognize the human panic and the monstrous low of the horse by the sound. The scene of death was typical, as if by some pattern. In the center of the crowd lay a dead horse, bloodshot eyes and broken human bodies around him, in strange positions and angles. The people might try to attribute all this to magic and evil witches from the North, but it is known that they were killed or captured a long time ago and that magic must not be talked about in that way, under the new government. In fact, in no case should we talk about it anymore. People looked at me, and all the members of the medical guild, with suspicion from time to time, and precisely because of the occasional miraculous cures. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with magical rituals, although occasional help would be welcome. It always shakes me when human lives that could have had happier endings end so suddenly. Premature deaths make this world unbalanced, I have always considered that, in fact that is one of the reasons why I went to the Academy fifteen years earlier.
The Academy, once a respected institution, which trained several dozen physician a year, is now, unfortunately, just a ruin. In fact, it still exists, but the wars that have been waged in recent decades have taken their toll. The physicians who taught, lived there for years, have now returned to their corners of the world. People who had come here for centuries now preferred to stay at their homes rather than settle on war grounds. In fact, I am one of the few who has successfully completed his studies in the last fifteen years and then was not executed. By a strange combination of circumstances, I am actually still alive, but that is not the story for the present time. It was believed that witches from the North interfered in the rite of initiation into the title of physicians and members of the guild. And all this with the idea that the minds of learned people can be managed. I somehow resisted, and I never called the truth and whether the people who claimed it were right. Either way, they respect me more now.
And I am satisfied with simple things. The child I heal, the mother I help bring a new life into the world, the worker when he gets hurt. And so, I don’t like premature deaths.
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I can only imagine that you have had some profound experiences in your professional life that influenced this story, @stormlight24. Health professionals must face life and death daily, and try to make sense of it. Fiction is an excellent tool for doing so. I was so interested in the mention of witches from the north and the beliefs of the townspeople. This story feels like it is from another time, and yet so relevant to today.
You are absolutely right, but a man gets used to everything, but never to death. That is actually the impression I wanted to convey, that the situation can be completely copied to the present.
Thanks for reading, and nice comment. :)
There is a kind of fateful atmosphere in this story, @stormlight24. Crude scenes, of which you don't know, in the end, the cause.
There is also a great feeling of loneliness and a sense of ennui, without us knowing what causes it ....
I just wanted to show one inner struggle with uncertainty. I hope you all had that kind of impression.
This was a sad story, but somehow, triumphant ... the satisfaction of simple victories in a deeply damaged world in which the powers that be suppress truth ... well done!
Just that. Thank you very much. :)
Your writing truly communicates!
Hello @stormlight24,
I read this in a certain time and place. I can understand it in terms of what I know and see, in the U.S. We are in a time of pandemic, when premature death is all around me. Unbalanced...wow. We are so askew as a society that school board meetings have become war zones. Health care professionals are retiring early because the stress of their job is too great. We are a nation divided against itself because of a kind of madness that has seized many in our midst.
So, forgive me for giving this lovely story literal meaning. But, as readers, we bring to writing what we know. When I read your story, I bring to it what I know. As is true of your narrator, "I don’t like premature deaths". And so, perhaps, I am feeling a bit off balanced these days myself.
You are a really effective writer. I'm surprised you stayed away for so long.
In fact, I had the same idea, to present the situation with the pandemic as a kind of inner fight, but from my point of view, as a health care professional. I’m in the red-Covid zone every day, and premature death is really something everyday thing for me, unfortunately.
Thanks for the kind words, I really try to make my words always have an effect, although I often fail to do so. But with time and experience, I will be even more effective.
I had to stay away until now, just to maintain work-life balance the way I wantad. :)
Wow. The way you wove fiction into the reality of today makes this a masterpiece.
It is no news what our healthcare workers face on a daily basis, and it's good to draw inspiration from them once in a while.
Thank you for sharing, I'm glad I read it.
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