车站保安走到我身边：“先生，您不能躺在这儿。”
A security guard approached. “Sir, you can’t lie down here.”

“抱歉，”我上气不接下气地吐出几个字，“后……背……抽……痛。”
“I’m sorry,” I said, gasping out the words. “Bad. . . back. . . spasms.”

“你还是不能躺在这儿。”
“You still can’t lie down here.”

真的很抱歉，但我得了癌症，要死了。
I’m sorry, but I’m dying from cancer.

这些话都到嘴边了，但万一我没得呢？也许那些经常背痛的人就是会有这样的遭遇。我算是很了解背痛了：解剖学原理、生理学原理，还有病人们用来描述不同痛感的不同词汇。但我从不知道背痛的感觉，也许就是这样的，也许。又或许，我不想给自己添霉运，也许我就是不想把“癌症”这两个字说出口。
The words lingered on my tongue—but what if I wasn’t? Maybe this was just what people with back pain live with. I knew a lot about back pain—its anatomy, its physiology, the different words patients used to describe different kinds of pain—but I didn’t know what it felt like. Maybe that’s all this was. Maybe. Or maybe I didn’t want the jinx. Maybe I just didn’t want to say the word cancer out loud.

我努力站起来，蹒跚着走向月台。
I pulled myself up and hobbled to the platform.