第一部　当我身强体健时
PART I　In Perfect Health I Begin

耶和华的手在我身上，借他的灵带我出去，将我放在布满骸骨的山谷里，使我绕骸骨而行：看啊，这开阔山谷中，骸骨如此之多；神啊，它们多么干枯。
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

他对我说：“人子啊，这些骸骨可复活吗？”
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?

——《圣经·以西结书》
—Ezekiel 37:1–3, King James translation

我曾经斩钉截铁地认为，自己永远也不会成为医生。阳光下，我舒展着身体，躺在一片荒凉的高原上，我家房子就在下面。那天，我那个当医生的叔叔和很多亲戚一样，问即将上大学的我未来想做什么工作，但我没好好回答这个问题。要是有谁非要逼我说出个明确的答案，我可能会说作家吧。但是坦白说，这时候想工作啊事业啊，感觉都挺荒唐的。几个星期以后，我就要离开这个亚利桑那州的小镇了，一点也没有要去闯荡事业、节节高升的感觉，反而像一个忙碌嘈杂的电子，即将达到逃逸速度，要飞向一片陌生而星光闪烁的宇宙。
I knew with certainty that I would never be a doctor. I stretched out in the sun, relaxing on a desert plateau just above our house. My uncle, a doctor, like so many of my relatives, had asked me earlier that day what I planned on doing for a career, now that I was heading off to college, and the question barely registered. If you had forced me to answer, I suppose I would have said a writer, but frankly, thoughts of any career at this point seemed absurd. I was leaving this small Arizona town in a few weeks, and I felt less like someone preparing to climb a career ladder than a buzzing electron about to achieve escape velocity, flinging out into a strange and sparkling universe.