“Catch-22” By Joseph - Khamkoo

“Catch-22” By Joseph Heller 236
awkward. ‘We’re all pals now.’
‘Sure, Chuck.’
‘Exit smiling,’ said Colonel Korn, his hands on both their shoulders as the three of
them moved to the door.
‘Come on over for dinner with us some night, Yo-Yo,’ Colonel Cathcart invited
hospitably. ‘How about tonight? In the group dining room.’
‘I’d love to, sir.’
‘Chuck,’ Colonel Korn corrected reprovingly.
‘I’m sorry, Blackie. Chuck. I can’t get used to it.’
‘That’s all right, pal.’
‘Sure, pal.’
‘Thanks, pal.’
‘Don’t mention it, pal.’
‘So long, pal.’ Yossarian waved goodbye fondly to his new pals and sauntered out
onto the balcony corridor, almost bursting into song the instant he was alone. He was
home free: he had pulled it off; his act of rebellion had succeeded; he was safe, and he
had nothing to be ashamed of to anyone. He started toward the staircase with a jaunty
and exhilarated air. A private in green fatigues saluted him. Yossarian returned the
salute happily, staring at the private with curiosity. He looked strangely familiar. When
Yossarian returned the salute, the private in green fatigues turned suddenly into Nately’s
whore and lunged at him murderously with a bone-handled kitchen knife that caught him
in the side below his upraised arm. Yossarian sank to the floor with a shriek, shutting his
eyes in overwhelming terror as he saw the girl lift the knife to strike at him again. He was
already unconscious when Colonel Korn and Colonel Cathcart dashed out of the office
and saved his life by frightening her away.
Snowden
‘Cut,’ said a doctor.
‘You cut,’ said another.
‘No cuts,’ said Yossarian with a thick, unwieldy tongue.
‘Now look who’s butting in,’ complained one of the doctors. ‘Another county heard
from. Are we going to operate or aren’t we?’
‘He doesn’t need an operation,’ complained the other. ‘It’s a small wound. All we have
to do is stop the bleeding, clean it out and put a few stitches in.’
‘But I’ve never had a chance to operate before. Which one is the scalpel? Is this one
the scalpel?’
‘No, the other one is the scalpel. Well, go ahead and cut already if you’re going to.
Make the incision.’
‘Like this?’
‘Not there, you dope!’
‘No incisions,’ Yossarian said, perceiving through the lifting fog of insensibility that the
two strangers were ready to begin cutting him.
‘Another county heard from,’ complained the first doctor sarcastically. ‘Is he going to
keep talking that way while I operate on him?’
‘You can’t operate on him until I admit him,’ said a clerk.
‘You can’t admit him until I clear him,’ said a fat, gruff colonel with a mustache and an
enormous pink face that pressed down very close to Yossarian and radiated scorching
heat like the bottom of a huge frying pan. ‘Where were you born?’ The fat, gruff colonel
reminded Yossarian of the fat, gruff colonel who had interrogated the chaplain and
found him guilty. Yossarian stared up at him through a glassy film. The cloying scents of
formaldehyde and alcohol sweetened the air.
‘On a battlefield,’ he answered.
‘No, no. In what state were you born?’
‘In a state of innocence.’