Publish and Perish, part 5: The Reverend Beth Almond

[Context: read the previous part or start from the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

“Hello,” said a middle-aged woman in a gray dress. “My name is Beth Almond. I’m an intern in this hospital’s chaplain residency program. How are you doing?”

“Um, OK,” Gerald offered noncommittally. “How’s your internship going so far?”

She looked at him as if sizing up her audience.

“The work is great. It’s a rich intersection of interesting theories and practical human needs, and I feel honored to be able to witness those needs, and to try to be helpful.”

She paused again.

“It can be draining at times. However,” she continued briskly, “I’m just starting my shift, so my tank is full!”

Gerald let out a half-laugh, half-cough and felt a twinge in his ribs. It’s as if I haven’t laughed in nine weeks, he thought.

“Are you almost done with your training?”

She nodded. “As a matter of fact, this is my last week.” Another pause. “Another reason for the full tank, I suppose. Anyway, Mr. Cutler, I understand that you recently regained consciousness after being out for quite a long time. Is it safe to say you’re still processing that?”

“Yes, very safe. That’s a bit of an understatement, actually.”

“Sure — of course,” she concurred. “So: what kinds of emotions are you experiencing right now? They are all valid, of course.”

It was Gerald’s turn to pause thoughtfully.

“In a way,” he said eventually, “things seem … straightforward. I’m alive, my brain seems to still work pretty well, I should be grateful. But… most of what I’m feeling right now is not gratitude. It’s closer to, I don’t know, maybe terror? Terror that the next time I may not be so lucky and that my life will end, or change drastically, and that I still won’t be prepared for that.”

Reverend Beth looked sympathetic.

“I’m a biology professor at Conley College,” he continued. “I have a small lab where I supervise undergraduate students as they study enzymes from disease-causing organisms in the hope that these enzymes would be good drug targets, and that we might contribute some basic-science knowledge to the drug development process.” He was reciting his elevator speech about what he did.

“So far so good, right?” He sighed as he prepared to diverge from the script. “But here’s the thing: our research has not yet led to any new drugs for malaria or any other disease. Not even close. The main conclusion we’ve reached so far is that certain enzymes are really hard to inhibit, and thus WON’T be good drug targets.”

He shook his head. “So now I keep coming back to, what if I had died? What would my legacy be? ‘He tried to expedite the development of new drugs for neglected diseases, but he didn’t get very far’? Like, is that all I’ve contributed to the world? Good intentions and reasonable industriousness that, in the end, haven’t really paid off?

“I mean, now that I apparently haven’t died, I apparently have a chance to course-correct, or reboot, or reinvent myself, or whatever. So that’s good… But I can’t shake the sense that, all these years, I’ve never really known how to live well — and that I still don’t know.” He looked at Reverend Beth. “You know?”

Reverend Beth nodded, closed her eyes for a few seconds, then reopened them as she spoke.

“I wonder if, in general, you tend to be fairly hard on yourself.”

[Update: the story continues with part 6.]

As I prepared this chapter, helpful information was provided by Justin Almeida, who bears no responsibility for any errors.