This story is pure action, a thrill-a-minute. Unfortunately,
it centers on the absolute pointlessness of human life. The setting is pretty
depressing: a Chinese lunatic asylum. That's where we meet our hero, an old
surgeon, well past his prime, a committed nihilist who lost his license to
practice in the United States. Why bother to give him a name if he's the first
one to assert that there's no point to anything?
No one really expects patients in a mental hospital to get
better so the Chinese lunatics don't suffer too much from his
negative attitude. The real problem is the economy. Like so many
things, including mental illness, it's outside the reach of human
control, though no one likes to admit it. So how do things happen? Who's
really pulling the strings?
From our perspective, they would seem like beings from a
magical race outside the laws of cause and effect. Why is it so hard for us to
accept this? What is the difference between not believing this and being a
nihilist?
That evening the surgeon writes in his journal: "Half
the people here think they're Satan; the other half think they're Christ.
In effect, it's Armageddon every day."
In effect, at that very moment, they were burning
the place to the ground. The surgeon would have to shoot his way out
of the parking lot when his shift ended. He kept his eye on the clock, waiting
for quitting time. He writes in his journal: "It never arrives."
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