The World of the End Read Online Free PDF Page A

shallow.
    The college scholarships, which came in droves, only served as kindling for her raging self-hatred. She reasoned that they were part of the education system’s overarching conspiracy to convince her that she was not worthless. Her loathing for the world played a crucial role in her choice of career. On the threshold of adulthood, she vowed to spend her life avenging the glaring injustices done to her: She would dedicate herself to healing the sick, forcing them to continue to suffer the bland burden of existence. Hating people, she sought with all her might to prolong their lives. All those who, in their blindness, stamped her inferiority with their approval could live forever as far as she was concerned. She privately congratulated herself on devising such an insidious scheme, which no one in the world could recognize.
    Upon completion of her studies, summa cum laude, she joined the nursing staff of a private hospital in Tel Aviv and, within a month’s time, even got used to the nickname her jealous coworkers gave her. “Anntipathy” felt great elation when the nurses watched in awe as she, a glum loner, cared lovingly for her patients. They failed to piece together the two jagged edges of her personality. The more she exhibited her intolerance for her coworkers, the more her shining attentiveness to her patients’ needs skyrocketed. Although she never exchanged so much as a “good morning” with her colleagues, she chatted incessantly with her patients, smiling and doting on them. The staff, failing to break through her chilly wall of estrangement, decided that her unblemished professionalism was yet further proof that she lacked any type of life beyond the hospital walls. Still, they struggled to make sense of this strange woman in their midst. She was the first to volunteer to cover for a coworker and, over eight long years, she had never once taken a day off. She had been sick on eight different occasions, but she had still come in, scooting between the beds as her body burned with fever.
    Ann was desperately invested in her patients’ rehabilitation, sending them back to their lives with a sly smile. Deep down, she knew that their praise, which bordered on adulation, was nothing more than the natural and temporary condition of a dependent person. Every time one of her patients checked out of the ward, she felt like an inconsequential servant. So long as they were in good health, they were the same people who cut her in line, walked all over her, ignored her.
    For her existence to be palpable, theirs had to be in jeopardy. In her eyes, that was the root of inferiority—to be seen, not as a human being but as a service provider. A hefty middle-aged patient dealt her the worst blow when, after two months of constant care, he passed her on the street without so much as a nod. She laughed at the sound of hundreds of patients’ voices reverberating in her ears, pledging to stay in touch, to come by and visit from time to time. Not one had kept their word. They had all managed to forget. She no longer held a grudge. She just learned to ignore them to nearly the same extent that they ignored her, pretending to be human.
    She wakes at five, showers, has coffee, leaves the house at five forty-five, gets on the bus at five fifty, arrives at the hospital at six twenty, puts on her white uniform, reads the night’s charts till seven, then attends to her patients till one, at which point she has lunch—the same two triangles of egg-and-potato salad sandwich with a glass of mineral water—and at one thirty, returns to the ward till six, tending to her patients, new and old, galloping like a possessed woman from room to room, solving all problems, calling the right doctor when necessary, and filling out the daily chart ten minutes before leaving the hospital. At six twenty in the evening she boards the bus. At six fifty she gets off, basking in the time she allows herself to roam the streets. At eight, she returns