Chemicals

You are what you eat...

photo by Pixabay..

Dr Franklin led two lives. No, neither of them was secret, they were just two lives.  Nor was it by plan; it just worked out that way.  By day, he was a chemistry teacher at the local university.  He loved it there.  He loved the research, and he loved teaching.  Others of his peers saw students as a necessary evil that interrupted their research. But Dr. Franklin liked involving himself in developing his students’ minds.  He relished seeing ‘Eureka moments’ when a confused student suddenly ‘got it’.

His other life was at home, with Clara. Last June, they’d been married forty-two years.  There wouldn’t be a forty-third.  Clara had succumbed to a stroke shortly after their anniversary, living just long enough to say her goodbyes to Dr. Frankin and assure him that he COULD live without her, and to carry on.  Now, it was November, and the loneliness was a burden that weighed heavy upon him.

They had sometimes been called the odd couple. They didn’t fit the academic marriage model. Certainly, a university professorship is more than a job, it is also a lifestyle. It was normal for teachers and their spouses to meet frequently at various functions.  It is how networking happens and career moves get made.  But the Franklins were only rarely present at such functions. 

Dr Franklin spent many hours teaching, grading papers (he called it evaluating), and doing his research. He loved his research, organic chemistry. He had always been interested in how the chemical make-up of the cells affects the organism.  It goes without saying that various minerals and compounds affect the physical organism, but he was especially curious about how they affect the mind. Sure, we all know of hallucinogens and other mood-altering drugs, but Dr. Franklin had been reaching deeper. Why do we all have different personalities, different perspectives, different approaches to life?  He felt that the fundamental answer to such questions lay in the chemical makeup within ourselves.

Clara was not so sure.  She was no authority, having been an English major, but it just didn’t make sense to her. They talk about two people having ‘chemistry’, she said, but can love really be chemistry?  Is that why we want to be together?  Is that why we love and respect each other?  Because we have the right combination of chemicals?  Dr. Franklin never prevailed in those discussions, not even in his own mind.  His love for Clara seemed transcendent to him, unmeasurable, unquantifiable. She good-naturedly chastised him for thinking such thoughts, that love and human caring came down to chemicals.. ‘But I’m a chemist’, he would say. ‘It’s my job’. They would both smile at the end of such conversations.  Was there any point in knowing?  Here they were, fully happy with each other, no need to define terms.

And then she died.  Dr. Franklin tried to be rational.  Rationality was essential to his work. Her death was a plain fact, but his sorrow was not.  His sorrow was something that he was sure could be controlled, manipulated in some way. He would adjust his research.

And he would keep teaching.  That had been a sore point for a number of years, now.  Earlier in his career, Dr. Franklin fit in well enough with his peers.  They shared in research and ‘looked over each other’s shoulders.’ He had been published often enough, generally in partnership with other researchers at the university.  But times change, and a new generation of researchers were taking things in different directions.  Dr. Franklin’s research, regardless of any merit, became passe. He didn’t care. He continued to persevere in his research. The scientific journals rarely published his work anymore, not because it lacked merit and significance, but because nobody really cared. Organic chemistry was going in other directions. 

And it wasn’t just the journals.  His peers at the university wanted less and less to do with him.  After all, he rarely networked with them. A new head of the department had come to the university six years ago, and there were problems from the beginning. She saw him as a dinosaur.  He was tenured and she couldn’t let him go, but she did all she could to get him to retire.  Lord knows he was old enough. She assigned him to freshman intro chemistry, assuming he would quit in disgust.  She was wrong.  Dr. Franklin enjoyed the freshmen.  He enjoyed their open, inquisitive outlook on the subject matter.  He wryly noted to Clara that the freshmens’ minds were more open than the established professors.

And those professor’s research!  He read the journals, the ones that didn’t publish his work.  It seemed to Dr. Franklin that the research was becoming more and more rote, unoriginal.  ‘Academic incest’, he called it.

Still, his life was good, pretty much how he wanted it, because he had no major concerns about  being socially and professionally isolated.  And then Clara died.  How much did it change things, he asked himself.  They had been married so long, there was little need for discussion of anything.  Evenings largely consisted of sitting in the parlor, each absorbed in their reading. ‘Well, I can still do that’, he reasoned.  Exactly that.  Clara doesn’t need to be there physically; she can be there in spirit. He need change nothing.

But it just didn’t work that way. This loss, this emotional loss that seemed to transcend the physical loss, stymied him.  Why should he feel this way? Using himself as the guinea pig, he worked to isolate the chemical imbalance, or whatever it might be, that caused him this feeling of loss, when he still had so much.  After all, any given day in a person’s life is generally of little consequence.  He had had over forty years with Clara, only six months without. Those memories, that experience should abide.  But it did not.

He spent increasing time in the lab, and gradually found the answer.  Four chemicals.  Our moods come down to four chemicals.  No, not our intelligence, not our reasoning ability, but our moods are chemical in nature.  As simple as that.  Not so simple, really.  Controlling those compounds was an impossibility in a person’s life.  Previous efforts with mood altering drugs were child’s play compared to what he had discovered. He could completely regulate moods with these four compounds, feel however he wanted to feel. He could do as much for anyone else.

Of course, he contemplated possibilities, scenarios.  What would it mean?  What Brave New World would be the result? Yes, he could erase his sorrow, never miss Clara again.  But he didn’t do it.  He even tried to convince himself that he should, but he couldn’t.  He wrestled within himself, intellectually, and could reach no conclusion.

In the meantime, life goes on. Dr. Franklin was in his office when one of his freshman students, Susan, came in.  He was a little surprised.  She wasn’t a dedicated student.

“Hello, Susan.  What brings you here today?”

“Hi, Dr. Franklin.  I was hoping you could help me with a problem.”

“If I can. If it’s legal,” he smiled.

Susan smiled back, but looked briefly away from him. ‘She’s uncomfortable with it, whatever it is’, he thought.

“Well, I want to transfer to my boyfriend’s school.  We thought we could do a long distance relationship, but it’s not working out.  I want to transfer to his school.  But I know I’m not doing well in Chem, and it will look bad on my transcript.  It’s past time for me to drop the course without your permission, and you could give me a failing grade.” She said all this while looking a little past him, not at him.  But now she moved her eyes to meet his. “I was wondering if you could let me drop, with an incomplete and no grade. That night make the difference.”

“What would make a difference is if you had studied more, done your work. Then you would have nothing to worry about.”

“I know.  I wish I had a good excuse.  I screwed up, is all.”  Dr. Franklin saw that she was genuinely contrite.

“Is this guy worth the trouble?  Why doesn’t he transfer here?”

“He’s in the program he’s always wanted.  He would never leave it.  I’m the one who’s flexible. It’s up to me.”

“I think that’s a good point.  It’s up to you.  Should you be letting his interests dictate your actions?”

She smiled, almost sheepishly. “He is my interest! I know I should learn this stuff, but I’ll never do anything with chemistry. I love him and want to be with him. To me, it’s the most natural thing in the world.”

“Does he love you?”

“Yes. We talk all the time, and see each other as much as possible. If two people were ever meant to be, it’s us.”

Dr. Franklin wasn’t sure what to think, but he signed her withdrawal slip. He watched her walk out of his office and down the hall, and then turn to go down the stairs.  He pondered.  And then he went into his lab and removed four compounds from his locked case.  He carefully measured out exactly equal quantities of each, and drank them one by one, but in quick succession. He looked slowly around the lab, fostering memories within himself.  Then he poured the remaining compounds from their vials down the sink, being careful to fully rinse both the vials and the sink, leaving no trace.

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