ADW Part 2

Prof Glauben’s personal laboratory was a cluttered and grotesque affair. A score of human skulls lined two shelves on the far wall, all seemingly staring at me with fixed grins when I entered the room. There were live brown rats in a cage, desiccated dead rats under a bell jar, and a dozen eyeballs floating in a formaldehyde bath. On the wall hung charts detailing human musculature and blood vessels. A fully articulated skeleton was suspended by a wire next to Prof. Glauben’s desk, on which various ledgers, journals, and reference books lay open at various angles. Somewhat incongruently a black and white cat that I later learned was named Helios slept on a pillow that lay in an open cabinet drawer.

Prof. Glauben was peering into a microscope when I entered, and I waited silently for him to finish.Though his back was to me, he somehow sensed my presence for he held up a hand in greeting and said “Velcome, my boy!” while still fixating on his microscope. After a few moments he scratched some words into a journal with a fountain pen and then finally stood and turned to me.

“I am eager to have your assistance, Venwick. There is much of great importance that ve shall accomplish together.” He held my two shoulders at arms length and looked me over, as though inspecting a sweater for moth holes. He smiled and released his grip. “Naturally, you will want to know on what ve shall be working. Please to sit down and relax, and I shall give you a toenail.”

“Do you mean thumbnail?” I asked hesitantly as I lowered myself into an armchair.

“Quite possibly. Your English idioms are so confounding.” Prof. Glauben resumed the seat behind his desk. “Venwick, I have spent zhe past several years isolating ein electrical impulse zhat appears to be present in all living beinks. I believe it is somehow connected with the animation–that it is a life impulse. Zhis life impulse fades as we age and disappears zhe moment we die.”

I nodded slowly, trying to convey that I followed him but not necessarily that I conceded his claims.

“Now, I suspect I am on the verge of discovering a way to preserve and sustain zhis life impulse chemically, which would mean…”

“Fame and riches?” I asked.

“I was going to say immortality, but it amounts to the same thing.”

I searched his face for a sign of humor, but he seemed to be in earnest.

“Zhis is what ve shall work on together. “

At that very moment a thunder crack from the worsening storm rattled the windows and frightened the cat. Prof. Glauben seemed not to notice, but I felt a deep sense of foreboding.

PART 3 WILL APPEAR ON FRIDAY