Chosen To Live by Jerry Schemmel
Excerpts
The faces bobbed along next to me, faces that sparked no glimmer of recognition. Some were streaked with blood, others remarkably unscathed. We moved almost as one, through a small clearing that we all assumed led the way out of the cornfield’s tall, green maze.
I stopped at the sight of an elderly man lying on his back, moaning in pain and with blood covering one side of his face. I asked him where his pain was coming from, although my medical expertise was roughly on par with my piloting experience. And like those strange moments in the cabin when I created sheer fiction to soothe a scared young boy, this moment left me with the same empty sensation that comes from wanting to help in a situation I was ill-equipped to handle. I had no idea what I would do or say if this man actually shared his pain, which he did.
