"Thank God. It seems Lady Luck hasn't abandoned me after all. In fact, she might even want to buy me a drink."
Alice and the scruffy man, Banner, were panting heavily as they jogged back. They tightly clutched the sewing kit and razor blades they had painstakingly managed to scavenge. Suddenly, they heard the long-faced man in the suit let out an exclamation of pure, almost exaggerated delight.
The two came to a halt. The man who had introduced himself as Dr. Strange, a neurosurgeon, was standing amidst the chaotic, debris-strewn sand.
He held a silver rectangular object up to the sunlight, examining it from multiple angles. A smile as radiant as a child opening a Christmas present beamed across his face.
It was an iPod Classic.
In the middle of a gruesome plane crash site littered with corpses and echoing with cries of agony, the music player in his hand looked obscenely out of place.
Strange waved his prize at the two of them. His eyes, previously full of critical disdain for the primitive environment, were now practically sparkling.
"Look at this. A classic 160GB iPod, complete with a pair of Sennheiser in-ear monitors that look like they have decent sound quality. And the most miraculous part? Not only did it survive the crash, but it still has half its battery left."
"Is that all you found?"
Alice's mouth twitched slightly, utterly bewildered.
Had this brilliant doctor just spent all that time rummaging around out here, not searching for hemostatic forceps or bandages, but scavenging for electronics?
"That's not even the best part."
Strange elegantly untangled the headphone wires with the practiced expertise of a doctor handling a stethoscope. He narrowed his eyes, an expression of pure intoxication washing over his face.
"I just scrolled through the playlist. It is packed full of my absolute favorite 70s funk and jazz. Earth, Wind & Fire, Chuck Mangione... My god, this is simply divine providence. Today really is my lucky day."
"Your lucky day?"
Alice glanced at the burning wreckage around them, then at the bodies being battered by the distant waves. Using that phrase in this context felt like a massive insult to the dead.
"Of course."
Strange seemed to have entirely blocked out the surrounding tragedy. Or perhaps this was simply the psychological defense mechanism of a world-class surgeon: stripping away all emotion to focus solely on what interested him.
He shrugged his shoulders, speaking as if stating an absolute fact. "I plummeted thirty thousand feet from the sky in a commercial jet. Everyone else was torn to pieces, yet I walked away without a single scratch. I didn't even lose a button on my suit. And now, I've scored a free music player loaded with fantastic tracks. If this isn't a lucky day, what is?"
His logic was simultaneously flawless and utterly bastardly.
Having finished his piece, the abnormally optimistic, long-faced doctor pressed the play button. He adjusted the volume, his body even swaying slightly to the rhythm only he could hear.
"Alright, since we have our tools."
He turned around, his cynical demeanor instantly sharpening into something far more serious.
"Girl, your hands are steady. I was watching you earlier; you have good eyes. You'll be my scrub nurse—my assistant. Let's pull this tough guy back from the gates of hell. Give me the blade."
Alice handed over the disassembled razor blade, but she couldn't help asking, "Are you seriously going to wear headphones and listen to funk music while performing delicate surgery?"
"It helps me concentrate and maintain my rhythm."
Strange took the blade and twirled it nimbly between his fingertips, the flashy movement looking almost like a magic trick.
"It's a good habit I developed in the operating room. Trust me, compared to the monotonous beeping of a heart monitor, music keeps my hands much steadier."
"What a wonderful habit."
Alice had never seen a doctor perform surgery while listening to music before. In her past life, even the most eccentric doctors treated the operating table with the solemnity of a Sunday mass. She figured that if a bizarre doctor like this did exist back then, he would have likely been murdered by furious family members, his reputation entirely ruined.
If Strange registered Alice's sarcasm, he didn't show it. Or perhaps he simply didn't care about the opinions of mere mortals.
He shrugged again and added, "Actually, regarding that habit, if the surgery is a success, I sometimes throw in a little dance at the end as a curtain call."
With that, he ignored the two dumbfounded survivors and turned his attention to the bottle of vodka in Banner's hand.
"Is that for me? No, wait, that's for the blade."
He took the bottle, twisted off the cap, and brought it to his nose. A look of mild disgust mixed with a hint of nostalgia crossed his face before he tilted his head back and took a small sip.
Gulp.
As the hard liquor burned down his throat, he smacked his lips, savoring the taste before giving an approving nod.
"Classic Russian swill. Rough, hits hard, tastes like drinking burning gasoline. But the proof is definitely high enough. It will barely pass as an antiseptic."
Alice was completely speechless. Was this guy here to save lives, or was he on vacation?
Beside her, the scruffy Banner watched the entire display with a deeply bewildered and concerned expression.