professor hargreaves puffed merrily on his pipe as he heaped abuse on dora’s paper.
“i don’t know what to say, candidate davis, i really do not. i would like to be polite, being by nature the politest of men, but really - i mean really - i do not know what to say except that this is the most absolute rubbish i have ever read. and by no means particularly original! ha ha! i vaguely recall reading something very much like it. although wait, it might have been the ravings of a confined lunatic referenced in some book or paper on mass delusions. or - perhaps i saw it long ago on some movie on late night tv, on some show like ‘worst movies of all time’! ha, ha!”
although dora had braced herself to face one of the professor’s famed “withering onslaughts”, she could not help flushing slightly.
“i would like to think,” she replied, with more grievance and exasperation in her voice than she would have liked, “that i have researched and considered the scenario a bit more thoroughly than your so-called ‘lunatic’ , or the script writer of the movie you saw.”
“oh, yes, to be sure!” the professor cried delightedly. “and what a scenario! let me see reprise it briefly. in the future, the entire human race is going to merge into one happy super-entity, in which all conflict, all aggression, all oppression, all injustice and inequality and iniquity and so forth will be obliterated and the human race live happily ever after in a refuge in a hole in the earth and live happily ever after! is that how i understand your scenario, eh? ha, ha, ha!”
“i do not use the term ‘ happily ever after’ “ dora answered as composedly as she could, “and i make clear that the outcome - which i only propose as a possibility - is many years - millennia at least in the future.”
“millennia, eh?”
“yes, obviously.” dora felt a little better. she felt she had taken the worst the professor could dish out and survived.
but suddenly the professor’s whole demeanor seemed to change. “obviously?” he asked without a hit of a smile.
“of course.”
the professor stood up behind his desk, and looked down at dora. “would it surprise you to learn, my dear candidate davis, that what you have so artfully deduced will not happen in in many millennia - but has in fact - already happened?”
this was a side of professor hargreaves that no one had prepared dora for. “the professor is pleased to be droll,” she replied.
“you think so?” the professor did not relax his serious tone.
“if the human race has been dissolved into one entity,” dora smiled, “what am i doing here? what are you doing standing here before me? what are the people outside in the street doing?”
“the people outside in the street are mere simulacra, or projected illusions, to deceive the handful of humans, like yourself, who have been left behind for research purposes. as for myself, i have taken human form for the same research purposes, but am in fact a being your puny little brain could not begin to comprehend.”
dora laughed out loud. “not bad! i would not have taken you, professor, for an enthusiast of the old-fashioned grand guignol and monster movies. a side of you i do not believe you reveal to just anyone. i feel flattered.”
“you think i am joking?”
“i will go along with the joke. tell me, just how many of us have been as you put it, ‘left behind’ for research purposes? a few hundred? a few thousand?”
“not nearly so many. you were seventeen. but now of course, the number must be reduced to sixteen.”
“you do not say so, “ dora managed to smile, although she was already bored with the professor’s little joke.
the professor reached down and struck a little bell, of the sort used on hotel desks.
after about a minute, during which time the professor maintained his straight face, dora thought she heard a bump on the roof of the faculty building.
this was followed by a clattering of boots on stairs and in the corridor outside.
the door behind dora opened. she turned and beheld two forms in red and gray uniforms completely unfamiliar to her, although whether the occupants of the uniforms were male or female, or human or otherwise, she could not tell.
“i am sorry it had to end like this, candidate davis,” the professor said softly, and for the first time dora thought she saw the slightest trace of sympathy in his face.
No comments:
Post a Comment