Bruce was resolute when he left, but the old man still stuffed a cigarette into his hand. "I give every newcomer who comes here a free cigarette. It might save his life at a critical moment, and it might earn me another customer. If the pain really becomes unbearable, come find me. Doctor welcomes every patient."
Holding the cigarette, Bruce returned stiffly to the truck. He casually slipped it into his pocket and sat blankly in the driver's seat until it began raining in Gotham again.
With nowhere else to go, Bruce could only stay in the truck. It was his only shelter. It was not particularly warm, but at least it kept out the wind and rain.
Sitting in the driver's seat, Bruce kept hearing the old man's words echo in his mind—words so absurd, so unreasonable, they sounded like a joke.
But the old man had not been joking. He truly saw himself as a doctor, searching for solutions for those patients and believing he could cure them. In his eyes, if the pain stopped, they were cured.
Was that absurd? Perhaps it was, but it was not entirely without reason.
Over the past few days, Bruce had come to deeply understand the importance of being able to work. It was everyone's only hope here.
They had to be able to work to survive here. If they could not even move, then all they could do was wait to die.
To gain the ability to work, they would try every method available to them, including using drugs to numb the pain.
There were two ways to treat an illness: treating the symptoms, or treating the root cause. Bruce completely disagreed with treating the symptoms through this kind of slow suicide, but he had no right to question why