Krishna kumar Mani: SFS1: Science Fiction Short Stories

“Alright, I’ll explain. But not in here. Let’s move over to the visitor’s room and I’ll tell you all about my experiments.”

“Please sit down, Dean.”

Both sit on opposite sides of the table, facing each other. Professor John smiled and said: “I am trying to invent a miracle medicine,” John began. “It is almost ready. I’m in the process of finalizing the results before I reveal it to the world.”

“Oh, I see. Okay, mind telling me what it is before your big disclosure? After all, I’d look pretty foolish if you were to release a scientific advancement that I had no Does your miracle medicine prevent cancer?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s related to memories.”

“Does it improve memory power?” asked the dean. “But there are lots of tablets in the market, what would your invention do any differently?”

“My medicine is entirely different. It doesn’t boost memory power. It erases recent memories.”

“Who will buy a drug that erases memories?” the dean asked with a laugh. “What a useless medicine! I can’t believe you’ve been wasting all your time and the university’s resources on this.”

The professor hadn’t expected these comments from the dean. All his life he’d worked hard and no one had recognized it. While others were home, he was researching. It was just like the dean to not see the applications for such a drug. In his life nobody ever rewarded him also nobody was as smart or as hard working as he was.

“No, this is not an over the counter medicine,” knowledge of. cure AIDS or John said, biting back his anger. “It would be prescribed only by physician…”

“Are doctors mad enough to prescribe this medicine to make the patients forget their own memories? Then who will pay the fee?” The dean burst into a fit of laughter.

“No,” yelled John, losing his temper.

He walked over to a shelf and took down an old newspaper and few other papers to show to the dean. The dean stopped laughing and looked at the papers John had brought him. “Every 40 seconds a person commits suicide. Every year more than one million people commit suicide. This death rate is higher than deaths from AIDS. And the suicide attempt rate is far greater. It’s 8 to 25 times higher than than these statistics.”

One of the paper showed ‘In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide, these statistics are based on 2012 WHO report’

“How are these statistics related to your research?” the dean asked seriously.

“My medicine will save a lot of people who would otherwise commit suicide. A large number of people who are depressed or have suicidal tendencies have traumatic memories that prevent them from living their lives. This medicine will help them to forget that trauma and allow them to proceed with their lives. At the present, my medicine can erase up to the last 48 hours of memories.”

“Perhaps I was quick to judge your research without considering its applications. This is actually very excellent, professor! You’ve performed an invaluable service to mankind with this.”

“Thank you.”

“When you will complete this?” asked the dean after being silent for a moment.

“Based on the amount of drug consumed, it has the potential to erase up to the last 48 hours of memories. Currently I’m in the process of extending the duration to the last six months.”

“So you’ve tested this medicine?”

“Yes. I’ve tested it on rabbits and also have run some trials on myself. No side effects so far.” The dean’s money mind woke up immediately. “It is a great product. We have to get a patent before going to market.”

The professor understood completely what was happening. The dean was trying to associate himself with him to this research but John was not in a position to deny him. “I will take care of everything,” the dean said with a smile. “I need the materials and information you have so we can get a patent on it. We’ll share the profit of 50:50. What do you think?”

“It’s my pleasure. You know as well as I do that I’m not a businessman. You can take it forward, but before that, let me show you how it works.”

“I think I’ve got it figured out. That red liquid is your medicine. You feed it to the rabbit and it forgets its recent memories.”

“What you have said is exactly correct, dean” “But how do you test with the rabbits and identify if it is working or not?”

“That’s very simple. Wait a minute and I will demonstrate with a rabbit.”

“Let us have a coffee before this demo”, the dean bought two coffees from the coffee vending machine and mixed the red liquid medicine into the John’s coffee while John was fetching the rabbit for testing.

The dean insisted that the professor to take coffee. John added some more sugar cubes and drank a big gulp.

After a moment the professor placed the rabbit and the medicine onto the table He put the medicine onto a carrot and gave it to the rabbit. The rabbit started to eat the carrot hungrily. John asked the dean to keep silent and requested him to watch the rabbit and the dean complied, not even blinking once.

Suddenly the professor injected the dean with a syringe.

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Just demonstrating to you that my medicine can also be injected.”

“I mixed the medicine in your coffee. We’ll both forget everything.” The dean laughed. John smiled and said “Dean, as I already said, I’ve tasted the medicine many times. After the first sip, I knew what you had done. What I mixed into the coffee wasn’t sugar cubes, they were anti-medicine. Sorry to say!”

The dean looked shocked and stared at the professor. John merely smiled and said, “You did ask to share in the research, right? Take this chair.”

The dean sat and fell asleep for a few minutes. John sat, patiently waiting where he had first talked to the dean.

After few minutes, the dean woke up. “What are you doing with this rabbit? Are you busy with something?” asked the dean.

“Dean, I am starting to forget things a little bit as I get older So I practice the lab experiments before I give demonstrations to the students.” The dean gave a small laugh and got up to leave. John gave a small chuckle and bid him farewell.

Year: 2257

“Sorry dear I tried all of the hotel booking websites,” said James hopelessly “I just can’t find any rooms on the moon“

“You know, there are public and private shuttle services available, dear,” replied Lilly. “There’s no rooms though. I’ve tried tour packages and combo booking deals but there just doesn’t seem to be anything open.” “Well what if we extended our budget to 7-star hotels, darling?”

“I don’t think that will be possible. Seven star hotels are just too much. I’m searching as best I can. I even searched for a guest house we could stay in. No luck there either.”

James was silent for a while before he continued. “I came to the conclusion, there are only two options for us. Either one will be fine with me. The first option is that we plan for Mercury. The shuttle service is a little bit costlier but the hotels are cheaper”

“No, dear. I want to celebrate our honeymoon on the moon,” said Lilly, crossing her hands in protest.

“Well, good thing that the second option is to have our honeymoon on the moon, then.”

“Wow. But how?” asked Lilly excitedly. “We’ll have to postpone our honeymoon for a month or two.”

“In two months that won’t be a honeymoon. It will just be a trip we take as a married couple. Isn’t there some other option?” said Lilly again crossing her hands.