Still Alive

I’ve written about Jonas before — the chronically-depressed and suicidal young man with muscular dystrophy and a gift for the game of chess. Well, he was still my patient and I was still the medical student in charge of him at the State Psychiatric Hospital. And the sharp-tongued, often impatient, but brilliant Dr. Curling was still my supervisor.

“What kind of progress are you making, young man?! Do you want to be a half-decent psychiatrist one day or are you planning on ending up as a geriatrician in South Dakota?” he snapped at me as we discussed the case.

And even though I knew enough to expect this sort of comment from the medical professional with half a century of clinical wisdom under his belt, I responded somewhat sheepishly, “Well, we are connecting, I mean, he plays chess with me every day and even though Larry, his orderly and suicide watchdog, falls asleep all the time, he hasn’t killed himself.”

“Yet,” Dr. Curling spoke, slamming his hand down on his ancient wooden desk. “He hasn’t killed himself yet.”