The Story

Robert had made a terrible mistake.  He knew, the moment after he took off the suit, that his worst fear had come true. A clear prick. There was no question his needle had gone right through the suit and deep into his palm.

It came to him slowly that he had only a day to live. The effects of the Damocles virus were well documented. The victim begins to feel dizzy and fatigued. Then, in a matter of hours, the patient becomes catatonic. In a day, he or she would be dead.

Robert knew these things. He, Robert Damon, head scientist at Gen-Air, had led the team in creating the vaccine. For the past four years, Robert and the team had tried to create weakened versions of the Damocles virus, a version that could be used as a vaccine. Theoretically, one wanted a serum that would not harm a person but immunize him from the real thing. For the real virus was a killer. A vaccine would be a miraculous, wondrous discovery. The team would win the Nobel Prize and be immortalized in medicine textbooks forever and ever.

Immortality motivated Robert. He wanted to be remembered, admired, imitated.

As he stared down at his pulsing hand, he knew it was all over. There would be no discovery. The government would shut down the lab and the work would be shelved. Five years of his teams’ collective lives shelved. It would all be over.

He had seen it. Each serum they had tried, each trial, each time the animals died. The rats, the rabbits, the guinea pigs, all of them. All dead. The latest serums had been showing progress. The chimpanzees had seemed fine for ten hours. But like a rattlesnake, death came suddenly and violently. Within another two hours the apes were dead.

Death. He mused about how he hated the word as he methodically stripped. He’d always shoved the concept to the back of his mind. He suddenly realized that death was the true enemy he was fighting. He’d joined the project to fight it, to conquer it. And failed.

Damon looked up to the window and pulled the handle of the chemical shower nozzle. He knew such a safety measure was useless in the face of a killer like Damocles. Yet mechanically he allowed the stinging solution to wash over him.

It was dawn now.

Soft smooth light was wafting into the room. The dawn of a new day. At any other time, Damon would have regarded the light as merely a bitter reminder of his failure. The experiments that went on through the night, the hurried naps as he waited for a tube to culture, the quick nibbling on a snack – all would be fruitless when the morning came. Dawn always seemed to bring bad news. So far, never had he woken up without a gnawing disappointment. And now?

Now dawn marked the last day of his life. The last 12 hours. The last moments in which he could do as he pleased.

After cleaning up, he opened the heavy door and walked slowly into the lounge.

Rachel was bent over a microscope, painstakingly counting the percentage of healthy cells.  She looked up as he entered and immediately he felt a pang of guilt. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eyelids swollen. Too many late nights with little sleep.

“Oh Doctor!” she said worriedly, “I must tell you something.”

Robert waved his aching hand, “Not now, Rachel. Tell me, how long have you been here?”

She looked surprised, “Why, let me think…I believe…since Sunday. This latest serum needed the finishing touches.”

“Listen, I’m giving the whole team a week off. I remember that you asked me permission to see your parents last week?”

She stared at him with mouth agape, “A week? A whole week? But we are so close! Why, this serum has been better than every one before it!”

“No,” he sighed: “It will not matter. As I was going to tell you –“

But he stopped. Why burden her with his death before sending her on her well-earned vacation?

“But Dr. Damon –“

“No buts, please – I’m feeling very tired.” He walked to the door and opened it.

“But I must tell you.” She sounded pleading, insistent.

“What is it?”

The words came out in a desperate rush. “The sample, I contaminated it, we’ll have to spend another week making a new one, it’s hopelessly corrupted, I’m very sorry-“

Dr. Damon turned and looked at her in the eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Take a break and we’ll talk about it the next time we meet.”

He brushed aside her shocked gratitude and walked out into the foggy morning air.

He hailed a cab and gave his home address. He would be the topic of conversation back there in the tall white building. Never had Dr. Damon ever given his researchers a break or failed to chew out mistakes. He’d always referred to errors as “week wasters” because they would set the entire team back a week or more. He knew his team called him the Grinch but before this, he’d always taken pride in their matchless efficiency and they’d come to appreciate it.

That was before. Now he was experiencing guilt. He struggled to remember what Rachel had been prattling about two days back. Some story about her parents wanting her home for Easter. He’d been irritated at the time. He’d lectured her about it. Didn’t her parents understand the magnitude of the work they were doing? Didn’t she realize the setback it would be if she left for a week?

He winced just thinking about it.

He tipped the driver and climbed up his apartment stairs. He rang the bell and waited.  Susan came to the door, still wearing her bathrobe and balancing the baby, squalling furiously, on her hip. Little Cynthia came running.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

His wife looked at him quizzically. “What happened? I thought you…”

“Everything’s fine. I thought I’d join the family for the day. What’s for breakfast?”

Her face suddenly tightened: “Oh, Robert, don’t be upset – I didn’t know you were coming! There’s only cereal – I need to go the grocery store but yesterday was so busy. The baby was sick and Cynthia scraped her elbow.”

“I did, but it’s better now.” A small voice piped up cheerily. “Mommy put a bandaid on it.”

Robert reached down and lifted her light little body up into his chest. He hugged her tight. “Daddy’s going to take you to the park today. Remember, I promised you?”

“Oh Daddy!” She was quivering with excitement. The park might as well be heaven as far as she was concerned. Susan never could manage the baby and take Cynthia to the park. And he'd promised her they'd go...when? A year ago. Was it really a year since he'd taken a day off? Sorrow fell upon him.

The baby was crying. He picked the tiny boy up and put him on his shoulder. Little Bobby stared into his father’s eyes and began to cry.

“He doesn’t know me,” said Robert ruefully.

Susan looked apologetic.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll take him from you, he’s already sick and he needs rest and quiet.”

Robert transferred the baby and picked up Cynthia again. He had wanted to hold them both, tight to his chest. He had wanted to kiss them on their cheeks and never let go. He’d wanted to say, “Daddy’s coming home, and I’m not going away.” In a sense, he wasn’t going away. He’d never return to work. At most, he had a day to live. One last day on earth.

The park was beautiful beyond words. Robert felt that the sun had never shone brighter. He marveled at the vibrant flowers. He listened to the birds sing of spring. A calm remorse flooded his being. They ate small sandwiches by the lake, and then boated across. Robert sang to his wife and told fairy tales about geese to Cynthia. He tried to make up for a year's lost time.

And in the late afternoon, Cynthia laughed and played in the fountain. He raced her up the path, ignoring the frowning lady whom he brushed by. But he could feel himself weakening. His reflexes were getting slower. His eyesight seemed blurrier. He was losing muscle control. Just like a rattlesnake, the virus was tightening its coils. He could almost hear the menacing warning, the rattle. He felt an uncontrollable urge to throw up. Not here. I can’t ruin this for them.

“Cynthia!” He said urgently. “Tell Mommy that we need to go. Tell her I’m going to the bathroom first.”

Cynthia’s joyous face looked wistful. “But…why? Are you going to work?”

“No, don’t worry about it, honey,” he reassured her.

Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears and her lips quivered.

“Daddy,” she whispered, “Why do you go away? Is it because of me?”

Robert was shocked. “No darling! Daddy loves you! I…” But words failed him.

He yearned to hug her, to pick her up, but his body was uncontrollable. He was beginning to feel a dull pain. The snake had bit.

“Cynthia, get Mommy and call a cab. I’ll come after going to the bathroom.”

He fought the nausea all the way home. He was reaching the steps. One at a time. One. Two. Three. Four. A pain shot through his side.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. He knew he was going to collapse.

Nine. Ten. “Robert, are you okay?”

Eleven. His mind was going numb. Twelve. There was the door.

There was a fall, a thud, and a scream. The poisoning was complete.

***

Robert. Robert. He groaned. He opened his eyes. Consciousness came back to him. He was hearing his name. Someone was calling him. It was…it was Susan.

When he forced his eyelids open, he saw Rachel, her face pale, bending over him, breathing heavily.

“Dr. Damon, you’re going to live! This morning, they confirmed it.”

What morning? Which morning? Rachel leaned in closer, her breath heavy.

“The serum, the serum you pricked yourself with. It is fatal to animals but not to humans. That means – that means you are on the brink, we are on the edge of the greatest discovery!”

He pieced together the words, slowly, painfully. The serum. Like a password, it unlocked the entrance to memory. The moment of realization when he pricked himself…the smell of spring…his family…Cynthia laughing in the park…the steps…and now…maybe…a great discovery!

He smiled wanly, and motioned to Rachel. “Tell them – “

But why should he tell them? The world wouldn’t care about his greatest discovery. The one he’d made right before his collapse. The discovery that every day should be lived as if it was his last.