Tick … tock.. Said a sole cell, in the vast prison. There were no clocks here, but this cell was eager to remind itself of every passing second, as if to savour it, to honour it. This ticking was tuned with the ‘plop…..plop…’ of the opaque brown water dripping upon the cold stone of the cell.
This one, out of the whole prison, was different from the rest; enveloped in darkness and isolation, aware yet unbothered by the murmurs shifting left and right, like chits being passed during a boring lesson, to gossip about the latest delightful story, which will embed itself within these lifeless walls for a month or two. After this, her story will die, for good. The earth will keep revolving around the sun, and time will pass. Such is the cruel fate of the young woman in that very cell, aware of her unfortunate ending, approaching her with cold and unsympathetic steps.
The guards stopped outside her cell, eyeing the woman with disgust. Cracking open the rusty lock and swinging open the gate, one, a little less intimidating of the two dragged the woman out by her forearm, like a product clearly going to waste. The lady did not scream nor whimper. She merely, hurriedly, took on the route to her destiny.
‘Clank.. clank’
The chains binding her feet dragged upon the stone floor, as she walked in front, with her head held high, like a bride upon the aisle, eager to leap into the arms of her awaiting love at the end of the road. The audience within their enclosed cells looked upon her with pity, as she finally reached the end of the hallway, letting the brightness of the scorching sun kiss her soaked body, and blind her for a few seconds, which to her seemed like eternal bliss, yet not as enchanting as the secret she held within her heart.
The audience beneath the guillotine cheered and screamed at the top of their lungs, as they laid their blood-thirsty eyes upon the young genius; the genius who was once at the top of the world, who had everything. She had respect, money, intellect, beauty, anything and everything that one could wish for.
However, she had stepped onto a path that she never should have, she was too curious, too nosy. She wanted to know more than what the people who worked in the shadows wanted her to know. She knew what was coming for her once she stubbornly refused the warnings of her faithful peers, who worked with her in her lab.
She wanted to push past the barriers that the people above her had sternly placed. She wanted to learn their secrets, the secrets of life, the key of life, the science behind ‘existence’, the science behind the mind. However, as she had predicted, she found out about something very controversial.
‘Controversial’ is a rather too decent way to put it. She found out something ‘disgusting’, something ‘nauseating’, something ‘repulsive’. Something that no one must know, and those people knew that such was the nature of this secret.
Yes, she knew very well that this was how her stubborn and curious life would end, but she was delighted, she was crazy, she was a mad scientist, and this secret was the only thing in her boring and underwhelming life that could quench her thirst.
The intimidating guard threw her on the boiling wooden ground, as her knees etched their blood into the boards. She once again looked at the mocking sun as if to tell it something, to tell it that the final moments of her life were brighter than it, that she was above it.
As the cheers of the crowd, and speeches of the guards muffled into her ears, her bright eyes beamed, as she fell into a state of ecstasy, of fulfilment, of peace. Awaiting her end under the bright blue sky, her grey hair flapped in the cool wind, and her soaked and ragged clothes, that had clung to her body before, dried under the heat, only to be soaked once again by the blood that poured out of her joyfully throbbing heart, pierced by the cold spear of the guard.
The young scientist coughed up crimson liquid out of the depths of her throat and dried up plum lips, as she fell onto the wooden boards, with her hands tied behind her back. As warm blood dripped out of her chest, she recalled the way the opaque, brown, muddy water dripped upon the stone slabs of the prison cell, as if it were a foreshadowing of her execution.
The warmth within her body was slowly replaced by an icy cold numbness, starting from the tips of her fingers and toes, gradually moving towards her heart, the core of her body, which still managed to leap in utter joy within her final moments, gradually coming to meet its end. The voices around her blurred further until she heard nothing, perhaps, something beyond the concept of ‘nothing’.
She gazed past the grey hair curtaining her baggy, exhausted eyes, at the dreamy man, who stood on top of a building, peering at the scene delightfully. This man, the holder of the secret she found, after shedding blood and sweat, literally, seemed to be as crazy as this woman, who grinned in amusement at the gold she had dug up.
She swore to herself, the day she sensed those people were hiding something, that she would find out what it was, even if it hurt her, even if it killed her; and she squealed at the thought, that she was the first, and she will be the last person, to ever find out about this dirty little secret that those with authority had kept from those beneath them.
Yes, she truly was, and always will be, a mad scientist.
By: Alishba Imran
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