The Professor

“Before my absence, we began discussing cellular respiration,” the young professor began from the center of the small lecture hall. The class was already largely settled and instantly came to full attention as he began to speak. Professor Mignot commanded the attentive respect of his students, both for his effective style of teaching as well as his impatient demeanor.

“Today we will discuss the detailed chemical pathways that underlie these metabolic reactions. We will start with the primordial anaerobic reactions occurring without oxygen and producing waste products such as lactate and ethanol. We will then move on to the more energetic aerobic reactions consuming oxygen that take place in the mitochondrion.”

By this time, the clattering of opening notebooks had passed and many students were furiously filling them with diligent notes.

“The key point that I expect you to come away from today is this. Understand that what we are talking about is how the biological world gets things done. Anything you or I do finds its root in these energy transport mechanisms. Respiratory reactions energize molecules that drive the mechanisms of life.” The professor then paused for effect, flexing his lecturing style.

“So by the end of this lesson, you will know why your muscles get tired and how to make beer.”

But just as a soft chuckle swept across the auditorium, a ruckus began competing for attention. The main door to the room suddenly thundered open with an obnoxious clamor. Light burst in from the low-lying morning sun, casting the shadow of the new entrant across the professor’s stage. The professor’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the spectacle. In strolled a straggling student, the one who was typically late to the class. He sauntered leisurely along the sloping aisle way toward a front row seat. The large double-doors slammed shut behind him, as all eyes followed his every plodding step. But the professor’s eyes became fixated on a single detail, the plastic clip on the shoulder strap of the lollygagger’s book bag. The clip presumably had been stepped on and broken at some point before. Now the full weight of the bag focused solely on the one remaining piece of unbroken plastic. And the strain was finally too much to bear. As the professor watched, the clip snapped, sending the bag into a lop-sided descent. Hitting the floor, it splattered its contents of books, papers and pencils across the aisle way. The dawdling student now made speedy efforts to collect his spilled belongings, as a new round of soft chuckling swept across the lecture hall.

The professor now welcomed the interruption, suspending the lecture until every fallen article had been retrieved.

*** *** ***

“Dr. Mignot,” the fellow professor called out, carrying his small, bagged lunch. This eldest of the facility approached Dr. Mignot in the lounge, eager to provide unwelcome lunchtime conversation. He was Dr. Dicter, head of the Chemistry department.

After a slight roll of the eye, Dr. Mignot responded, “Late lunch for you today.”

Dicter’s rolling eyes were the next to signal irritation, as he sat down. “I got a speeding ticket on the way in,” he admitted.

A grin inched across Mignot’s face. “After all your complaining about my racing around, you got the ticket?? That is a dream come true.”

“Yeah, it’s a funny world,” Dicter acknowledged with a toothy senior grin.

Ready to change the subject, Dicter quickly followed with a new line of discussion. “So where were you off to last week?”

“Burying my grandmother” was Mignot’s cavalier reply.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dicter choked.

“Why? You had nothing to do with it.”

There was a pause before Mignot continued. “Old age did. She died on her 100th birthday.”

“100th! Wow! I should be so lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. We apparently just have good genes in the family. I think her mother died at that age too.”

“A hundred years?”

“To the day.”

Dr. Dicter’s eyes slowly blinked as he studied Mignot’s face. “You’ve certainly never been one for superstition, Dr. Mignot.”

“Yes, but I suspect you are.”

Dr. Dicter paused again for a moment before responding to the young professor. “You have to admit, you yourself are a pretty lucky guy. The office pool every year, the paintings you found, the sports car sweepstakes... I could go on.”

“Please don’t,” Mignot cut in. “I’ve had my tough share too.”

Without thinking, Dicter demanded, “What?”

Again there was a pause before Mignot began, “I’ve lost a lot more than anything on your little list. When I was a young kid, I lost my parents.”

Pauses had become routine in this wrenching conversation. But Mignot continued, “They were taking me up to Lookout Point. I did not care to go. I was very young and I started screaming at them. And next thing, we were in a crash.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

Mignot again cut Dicter off, “Why? I was fine in the back seat. Lucky me.”

Dicter sat in silence, pondering a new dimension of the man with whom he’d shared so many pedantic lunchtime conversations before. And sensing this, Dr. Mignot felt a cringe of regret.

*** *** ***

It was late when the intern finally finished his chores, leaving Dr. Dicter to work alone in the chemistry storage closet. There the doctor loaded heavy boxes onto antique wooden shelves. Atop the rickety footstool, Dicter’s wrinkled arms extended to place the drum of alcohol burner fuel in its place on the top shelf. His frail arms trembled under the strain as the large vessel took his scrawny frame to its limit. And when it happened, it happened fast. The drum toppled from Dicter’s bony fingers and onto the plastic tray of freshly filled glass alcohol burners. Those burners in turn fell from the shelf. Each one tumbled, as if in slow motion, smashing onto the floor in the same order that they had upended from their high perch.

As alcohol seeped across the floor, the cascade of collapsing clutter continued to propagate above. A glass jar labeled “Fuming Nitric Acid” landed squarely against the side of another jar labeled “Sodium Metal.” The rigid glass surfaces kissed in impact as a network of cracks coursed through each. The violence continued as the splashing acid sliced through the translucent oil and mated with the dull white chunks of sodium inside. Bubbles of orange gas erupted from the union, as the increasing contact grew ever more explosive. Quickly the reaction ejected brilliant yellow sparks, each trailed by a wisp of wildly churning white smoke. Soon the yellow sparks reached the expanding pool of alcohol, spawning perfect blue circles of ignition that grew to surround lazy red ribbons of ripening flame. And despite all of this, not enough time had elapsed for escape.

*** *** ***

The phone rang. Startled, Mignot’s spine became erect in his chair, and his widened eyes reclaimed vision from his drowsy imagination. Answering the phone, Mignot heard the dreadful news. There had just been an accident in Dr. Dicter’s lab. The doctor was missing, the intern had reported. And fire was spreading throughout the Chemistry department.

*** *** ***

Mignot jumped into his car and slammed into gear. His late afternoon slumber had transformed into a mad panic. Tires spun recklessly against the pavement, with the sporty car ripping onto the road.

At a frantic pace, Mignot whipped along the fast lane, passing car after car that ambled casually along to his right. In the distance, beyond where the road narrowed against the hillside, Mignot could see a dark column of smoke staining the twilight sky. His resolve only grew to navigate through traffic to that destination. Then came the rolling obstruction. A stout luxury convertible swung suddenly from the slow lane and directly into the path of the hurried professor. In a flurry of expletives, Mignot slammed his brakes to match the speed.

“Come on!” he shouted in a deafening bellow, as the open road ahead condensed to a single lane of travel on each side. The heavy on-coming traffic precluded any opportunity to pass. This sinuous stretch of road hugged the steep side of the cliff, now offering a direct view of the conflagration unfolding below. But the enraged doctor’s attention only targeted the stout obstructionist that blocked his way. The doctor seethed as he watched the driver’s ring of remaining grey hair flutter in the wind, while the passenger’s curly red locks danced in rhythmic chaos.

The doctor now saw what could be a chance to pass. He darted across the double-yellow lines and into the opposing lane. Flooring his sports car, he attempted to negotiate the advance, when instead he found the rolling obstruction cruising steadily beside him. Without a glance, it was as if the other driver had picked up speed just to thwart the maneuver. Seeing traffic ahead beyond the curve, the doctor jerked on the brakes and shot back behind his opponent.

Then, without warning or cause, the convertible swung suddenly toward the opposing lane. In a frantic overcorrection, the car jolted back into its own lane, avoiding a certain head-on collision. But by this point, the car’s tires had lost traction with the road. They were aimed back toward the roadway, squealing futilely as the car bounced across the edge of the payment. Then, as if placed for the occasion, the skidding car slammed off-center into an outcrop of boulders. The slight yaw in the car’s trajectory instantly became a ferocious spin, as a jet of dirt shot from the site of impact.

The doctor opened his astonished eyes to see the whirling wreck disappear into a cloud of its own dust that was tossed back across the road in front of him. His own car clattered as he traversed this debris field to emerge on the other side. There, the doctor stopped in the middle of the lane with his foot pressed anxiously against the brake. He sat there, staring forward, with the dust swirling behind him and the smoke rising ahead.

*** *** ***

By this late hour, the rain had become quite fierce. The professor’s windshield wipers cycled at rapid pace to keep up with the copious downpour. But despite the profuse rain, the doctor navigated the upcountry roads with ease. Even after so many decades, his instinct guided him back. Without a moment’s hesitation, the doctor proceeded up the narrow wooded drive to Lookout Point.

At the hilly apex, the car stopped and the lights went dark. Sheets of driving rain pounded the car, as the professor sat there in solitude. In his lap, he gripped the loaded pistol with its hammer cocked back.

Mignot opened the door and stepped out into the rain. Distant lightning strobed the sky. Each pulse of light showed the anguish on the doctor’s face. By the next strike, he had made his way to the edge of the cliff that was Lookout Point. He stopped at the old metal railing that delineated the barrier to the steep drop beyond. In another flash of lightning, his grimace of uncertainty and desperation was increasingly evident. The rain continued to pour. Streams of water masked the tears that ran down the doctor’s chin and onto the barrel of the gun. His teeth clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. Finally, he pulled the trigger as the next lightning flash and thunderclap arrived in sudden unison. But Mignot’s eyes opened a moment later, into the familiar darkness. The gun had misfired. Mignot’s emotional nucleus burst. He launched the useless weapon overhand and sent it hurdling off the cliff. And as if that act had sapped the last of the life from him, his exhausted body crumpled onto the drenched cement landing.

Another distant thunderbolt rumbled, as Mignot’s body once again came to life. The mark of uncertainty had vanished from him, as his eyes opened into the torrent of rain. Mignot’s stance took hold, his spine stiffened and he arose to his feet. Taking two steps forward, he grasped the old metal railing at the edge of that dark abyss below. For an endless moment, he stood there looking down into the depths. With his torso now pressing into the steel rigidity of the railing, he released his grip and outstretched his arms. He lifted them together upwards toward the foreboding sky. A tingle danced across his skin. Undaunted, he continued to concentrate upward in an inviting pose. It was then from the heavens that the last lightning bolt struck.

Writings

Home