Organizing a funeral for a man who is still breathing requires a special kind of logistical genius, a complete lack of shame, and access to a lot of Army-issue canvas. Fortunately, as the Chief Surgeon of the 4077th, I possessed all three in spades.

While Paulson snored peacefully on his cot, deep in his chemically induced “eternal” slumber, the camp went into overdrive. I had enlisted Trapper John McIntyre, my partner in surgical and social crime, to handle the heavy lifting. Together, we bribed the motor pool with three bottles of gin to build a very respectable-looking coffin out of plasma crates and two-by-fours.

The Mess Tent was converted into our cathedral of comedy. We draped white surgical sheets over the tables, replacing the usual smell of powdered eggs with the scent of burning paraffin from fifty candles shoved into empty Schlitz bottles.

“Hawkeye, I have to protest,” Father Mulcahy said, wringing his hands as he surveyed the blasphemous scene. “Holding a wake for a living man… it’s highly unorthodox. The Bishop would have my collar!”

“Father, think of it as a preemptive strike,” I explained, patting the priest on the shoulder. “We’re saving him the trouble of dying to hear nice things said about him. It’s an act of supreme Christian charity.”

“It’s an act of supreme insubordination!” Frank Burns screeched, marching into the tent with Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan trailing behind him. “I demand this charade be stopped immediately! Colonel Potter—”

“Colonel Potter,” I interrupted, “is fully aware that we are conducting a vital medical experiment in psychiatric rehabilitation. Besides, Frank, think of the bright side. You finally get to attend the funeral of an officer you actually outrank. You can gloat over his corpse.”

Margaret, surprisingly, looked teary-eyed. “It’s just so tragic,” she sniffled, dabbing her eyes with a pristine handkerchief. “A fine medical officer, cut down in his prime by his own melancholy. It makes you realize how fragile we all are.”

“He’s not cut down, Margaret, he’s just napping!” Frank hissed, though he took a tentative step toward the front row of folding chairs anyway.

At exactly 1900 hours, Trapper and a surprisingly strong Corporal Klinger (wearing a tasteful black taffeta mourning dress and a veil) carried the makeshift coffin into the Mess Tent. Inside the box, Captain “Painless” Paulson lay oblivious, dressed in his finest Class A uniform, his hands folded neatly over his chest.

We set the coffin down on the sawhorses at the head of the table. The entire camp had turned out. Nurses, corpsmen, even the cooks, who had managed to bake a cake that looked suspiciously like a giant liver.

“Alright, people, settle down,” I announced, tapping a spoon against a metal kidney basin. “We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Captain Paulson. A man who looked at the horror, the bloodshed, and the sheer, unadulterated boredom of the Korean War, and said, ‘Check please.'”

I motioned to Radar. “Corporal, if you would.”

Radar raised his bugle. It was battered, dented, and had survived things no instrument should ever endure. He took a deep breath and began to play ‘Taps’. Calling it ‘Taps’ is generous. It sounded like a goose being slowly strangled in a wind tunnel. The notes cracked, squeaked, and died a painful death somewhere near the high C.

It was exactly what I was waiting for.

Inside the coffin, the sedative was wearing off right on schedule. I saw Paulson’s fingers twitch. Then, his eyes snapped open.

For a solid ten seconds, he just lay there, staring straight up at the canvas ceiling of the Mess Tent. Then, he slowly turned his head. He saw the candles. He saw the white sheets. He saw Klinger weeping loudly in a black dress. He saw Frank Burns glaring at him.

He sat up. Slowly. Like Dracula rising from his crypt, but with a worse hangover.

A collective gasp echoed through the tent. Several nurses crossed themselves. Frank Burns actually took a step back, tripping over a folding chair and landing squarely on his backside.

“I… I’m dead?” Paulson croaked, his voice thick and dry.

“Deader than a doornail, buddy,” Trapper said cheerfully, raising his tin cup. “Welcome to the afterlife.”

Paulson looked around, utterly bewildered. “If I’m dead… why am I still in Korea? And why is Frank Burns here?”

“Ah,” I said, stepping forward with a fresh martini. “That’s the bad news, Painless. You died. But it turns out, Hell isn’t fire and brimstone. Hell is the 4077th. For all eternity. You’re going to spend the rest of time patching up shrapnel wounds and listening to Frank complain about the laundry.”

Paulson stared at me. Then he looked at Klinger’s dress. Then he looked at the liver-shaped cake.

The absurdity of the situation hung in the air, heavy and ridiculous. The “painless” suicide he had craved had landed him right back exactly where he started, surrounded by the same lunatics, in the same mud.

A small, strange sound escaped Paulson’s lips. It started as a cough, then evolved into a wheeze, and finally exploded into a full-bellied, hysterical laugh. He laughed until tears streamed down his face, clutching the sides of his wooden crate coffin.

“It’s a joke,” he gasped, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. “You guys… you staged a funeral. For me. While I was asleep.”

“We wanted to show you what you’d be missing,” I said softly, the sarcasm dropping from my voice for a rare, fleeting second. “It’s ugly here, Paulson. It’s a meat grinder. But as long as we’re stuck in it, we might as well laugh at the devil. You check out, you let the madness win. You stay, and you get to help us drive Frank crazy for the rest of the war.”

Paulson wiped his eyes, still chuckling. The profound, heavy darkness that had clouded him that morning seemed to have broken, shattered by the sheer force of our collective absurdity. The “suicide” had been painless, yes. It was the death of his despair.

He swung his legs over the side of the coffin and stood up. “Hawk,” he said, reaching out to take the martini from my hand. “You’re a maniac.”

“I try, Doctor. I really try.”

“To Captain Paulson!” Trapper yelled, raising his glass. “Back from the dead and ready for duty!”

“Hear, hear!” the camp roared.

Even Frank muttered something about “inappropriate resurrection,” but he took a sip of his drink anyway.

We were just about to cut into the terrifying liver cake when the harsh, unforgiving crackle of the camp P.A. system cut through the celebration.

“Attention, all personnel,” the voice boomed, stripping away the comedy and plunging us instantly back into reality. “Incoming wounded. Choppers landing on the pad. It’s a big one, folks. We need everyone in the OR on the double.”

The laughter died instantly. The candles flickered.

I looked at Paulson. The smile was gone from his face, replaced by the grim, familiar resignation of a soldier about to go back into the trenches. But the hollowness in his eyes was gone. He looked at me, gave a firm nod, and started unbuttoning his Class A jacket.

“Let’s go to work, Hawkeye,” he said.

The sword of time was still swinging, and the early morning fog would be waiting for us tomorrow. But for tonight, the suicide was canceled. We had lives to save.