Research Science

My wife issued a challenge to our writer's group to come up with a story that contained romance as the main element. This was my response.

Lucas Madrigal, Luke to those bold enough to call him by his first name, sat hunched over a small laptop computer perched at the very edge of his chaotically disorganized workstation.  Six years of graduate school and a masters degree in biomedical science and all he had to show for it were a research grant to find a vaccine for alleviating the symptoms of listeria in pregnant women and the hope that it would earn him his doctorate.  "What, in the name of all that is curable, do I know about pregnant women, anyway?" Luke pondered to himself.  Luke hadn't even had so much as a date since he'd started college at the tender young age of seventeen.  At least one year ahead of most of his fellows.  That's what he had, fellows.  None of the acquaintences he'd made during his years at Virginia Polytechnic Institute or St. Ambrose University could qualify as friends.  Friends hung out together.  His so-called friends called him at three o'clock in the morning, recovering from mild alcohol poisoning, and wanted the answers to the chemistry homework because they "...hadn't been feeling well and couldn't make it to the library to do the research."

Most of Luke's life fit into the same organizational outlines he'd been using to plan his research for the last six years.  Neat lists that grouped his work into categories, sub-categories and specialized focus points.  He would rigorously list question after meaningless question and then begin the laborious task of breaking each one into their prospective areas.  If a question didn't fit a specific category then, well, they always fit or they were discarded.  Luke didn't have time for uncertainties.

"Okay, Hero, you're going to get pregnant, today, right?"  Luke looked down at the mice in the large cage on his workstation.  His chosen couple, two white mice he'd named Hero and Leander, after the tragic couple from Greek myth, milled on opposite sides of the cage.  So far, his efforts at encouraging amorous activities between the two rodents had been entirely fruitless and more than a little frustrating.

Luke considered his "potency and breeding" chart, once again.  According to his latest tests, Hero should be at the very peak of her estrous cycle.  By all probability, the mice should be all over one another.  Yet, no amount of forced interaction, on his part, seemed to be encouraging the expected mating activities.  In fact, neither of the mice seemed to recognize the other as even remotely interesting much less making more amorous advances.  They seemed to be more dedicated to ignoring one another.

"I know just how you feel, Leander." Luke sighed and tapped in a notation on his laptop.  The charts he was keeping on the mice included everything from food intake, water consumption, grooming habits, nesting and even fecal and urine output.  Luke was quite thorough.

Luke reached over and picked up a notebook, without looking away from the mice, and succeeded in knocking over a small cup filled with pens and pencils.  The noise spooked both mice and Hero bolted over to Leander’s side of the cage.  Leander hesitated and twitched nose and whiskers, for just a moment, before dashing quickly to the middle of the pile of pine shavings heaped on one side.  He began digging, furiously.

“Interesting,” said Luke and made another notation on his laptop. “External stimulus caused brief proximity with male subject.  Male response was…” Luke searched for the right word.  “Stupid?!?!”  Luke suddenly bellowed.  He shrank down on his stool and glanced around.  He knew he was the only person left in the lab, but still he felt embarrassed.  Still, he couldn’t help himself.  “Leander, you’ve got to take advantage of her vulnerability.  Show her you’re the man!  A virile specimen and worthy of her, d****t!”  He noticed that his blustering caused Hero to tuck her tail around her and Leander just seemed to dig with even more zeal.

Luke knew, from previous experiments and his studies in college, that mice mated year round.  He was also aware that mate selection tended to drop only when influenced by disease or predator “harvesting.”  The more danger in an environment the less likely mice would be to flourish.  Nature had a way of encouraging them to become more prolific in places that suited them.  Environments like perfectly planned cages with bedding, pine shavings, a constant source of food, water and warmth were those kinds of places.  Luke had spent the better part of a week planning and building the ideal “love retreat.”  He’d even nicknamed it, “The Tower of Sestos.”  Just like the intimate locale in the story.  It was romantic.  It was charming.  It was, well, perfect.

Luke knew that the story of Hero and Leander ended tragically.  The ardent young Leander ignored the warnings that the weather was too dangerous and began his grueling swim across the strait from Abydos, led by the light placed in the tower window by his love to summon him.  Then, in the typical fashion of Greek tragedies, the light is mysteriously neglected by Hero and blown out by the storm, dooming Leander to lose his way and drown.  Of course, shortly thereafter Hero, stricken with guilt and grief, throws herself from the tower to her own death.  His hope was that, like the famous couple, his mice would be undeniably drawn together as lovers just long enough to impregnate Hero.  So far, the mice seemed only convinced that the other was more nuisance than friend.  They appeared, at the very least, uninterested.

Luke didn’t like to remember some of the techniques he’d tried, out of sheer desperation, earlier in the week.  The other researchers in the nearby workstations had rather helpfully suggested mood lighting and incense which made both mice twitch uncontrollably.  One very persuasive associate convinced him that only music would entice the proper response.  He could still hear them laughing at him while Barry White played from the speakers on his little laptop, next to the cage.  The irony was that Barry White was the only thing the mice had responded to, positively.  They had both become drowsy and fallen fast asleep.  This, obviously, was not the favored response.

Luke watched Leander burrow deeply into the little pile of pine shavings.  The rodent had done this many times before.  Luke noted the time and made an entry on his laptop, filling in the data in, yet another, table in a progressively detailed spreadsheet.  Clear and concise facts and figures that seemed to do nothing more than outline a complete lack of cooperation in his specimens.

For the third time that evening, Luke got up and walked across the room to the group break area.  His shoulders were slumped forward and he shuffled over to the coffee pot.  Someone in his group had rather playfully plastered the molecular symbol for caffeine on the front of the large industrial coffee station.  Another colleague had put a sign overhead that read, “Ah, sweet trimethylxanthine, how we love thee.”

“Nerds one and all, rejoice.”  Luke mumbled to himself as he poured himself a mug and added his preferred blend of non-dairy creamer and artificial sweetener.  Even though he was rail thin Luke had grown up in a household of overweight diabetics and still bore the fear of overworking his pancreas and inheriting the family “curse.”  He sipped at his mug of “light and sweet” before adding another packet of sweetener and approving the mixture and making the return trek to his unkempt workstation.  It didn’t take more than a cursory glance at the cage he’d been staring at for weeks to realize something was terribly wrong.

Hero was lying on her side, eyes closed, not moving even a whisker.  Luke let out a strangled cry as he ripped the top off of the cage.  He shoved the papers and other detritus strewn about his workstation aside as he pulled the enclosure forward.  The inside contents jostled and tumbled.  Water in the reservoir, wired to the side of the cage, sloshed noisily.  Luke leaned over the top of the cage but before he could bring himself to reach in and grab Hero he stopped short as his eyes fell on the mound of pine shavings.  In the center of the pile, where Leander had been digging furiously, was a depression.  Luke reached in and shoved a portion of the pile aside only to discover a small hole where Leander should have been.  Again, a cry escaped from his lips as he furiously flung handful after handful aside searching for the little male mouse.  He was nowhere to be found.

“Impossible” was the only word that kept ringing inside Luke’s skull.  His breathing came in gulps as he pulled the large cage far enough forward to discover another hole right through the surface of his workstation.  Luke couldn’t believe what he was witnessing.  What he had assumed was the typical busy puttering of the mouse had been a diligent escape plan.  How had he not discovered this before?  Surely, he would have noticed a hole in the bottom of the cage when he cleaned it out every two days, like clockwork.  It was inconceivable to even consider that the little mouse had been able to do all this in one evening worth of digging.

Luke stopped himself and took a deep breath.  He had Hero to consider now.  Luke suddenly realized that his eyes were beginning to fill with tears and he was sobbing, without shame.  His chest felt heavy with the guilt he couldn’t ignore welling up inside of him.  Had he doomed these two from the beginning?  Leander had “lost his way” and Hero, poor Hero, had died from grief.  Again, the single word “Impossible” sprang into his mind and echoed mercilessly.

Luke blubbered even louder as he leaned farther over the cage and brushed the pine shavings he had heaped on top of Hero’s little body.  He had no idea what he could possibly do for her but he had to, at least, try.  He put both his arms into the cage and tenderly lifted the lifeless corpse out of the cage.  Emotion overtook him completely and he sank to the floor, cradled the little rodent to his chest and wept.

His crying opened something deep inside of him that he couldn’t control.  What started out as grief for the little rodent became a deeper sadness that went back through the years of loneliness and angst.  An anguish, that he hadn’t even known was there, burned like a flare in the darkness of his soul.   He had been so focused on his work, his precious research.  Now, as he considered the rodent-ine tragedy that he felt responsible for engineering he couldn’t avoid his own self imposed isolation.  He simply cupped Hero in his hands and bawled.

“Ouch!!!  God damned, son-of-a-b***h!”  He felt the tiny teeth sink into the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger.  Instinctively he flung his hands and watched as, almost in slow motion, the tiny figure of Hero twisted in mid-air and landed on the tile floor several feet from where he sat.  Hero landed on her feet and sprawled, sliding toward the break area.  Luke was too stunned after the shock of being bitten in the middle of a good old-fashioned crying jag to do anything but watch.

Suddenly, from under the cabinet at the edge of the break area darted another little white figure.  “Leander!” shouted Luke.  The tiny mouse placed himself in front of Hero and lifted his front paws.  Hero slid right into him and the two fell together in what could only be described as a jubilant embrace.  Both mice continued sliding together for a few inches more before jumping up and scurrying back under the edge of the cabinet.

Luke stared at the black space they had disappeared through.  He didn’t even attempt to get up and look for them.  He knew that he wouldn’t find them.  He climbed to his feet slowly, took a deep breath smiled and said to himself, “I think I like happy endings.”

Later that night Luke made repairs to the cage and placed a call to a friend who raised feeder mice in the nearby suburbs.  While he worked at covering the hole in his desk he could hear scrabbling and scraping noises in the wall, adjacent to the coffee station.  What he also heard made him start crying again.  This time it was with a completely different emotion… joy.  It was the muted but unmistakable sounds of tiny speakers in the walls playing Barry White.

Author's Note

I know the ending is slightly rushed and could use just a little polish. I would sincerely appreciate impressions and good, constructive criticism on this piece.

Reviews

[Solst Rapture]

My impression was that it was a very refreshing piece of writing. After begining my new project, I felt as if my writing was stifled and clumsy, so to read this was revitalizing. The content was unusual but funny and in places Luke really stood out and I could picture him quite nicely. There was only one aspect that I thought detracted from the story, or should I say where I began to feel a little distracted, and that was when Luke began to cry. I don't know why but it seemed as if that was compensating for something - perhaps you thought the story lacked drama until then? I didn't, in fact the opposite. I thought you wrote a very delicate story and yet managed to sustain my interest throughout. I didn't think the ending was rushed, it was simply wrapped up quite tidily I thought.

The only grammatical error is noticed was with the line that contained; '...filling in the data in, yet...'

I enjoyed reading this Mr Jodie and it has inspired me to go and tighten up my own work, although I'll have to wait until I have finished it, otherwise I get disheartened. Thanks for the read.

[ElJays Nicholas]

Ahh!! Jodie! What a great story! You are brilliant! The ending is slightly rushed, like you say, but I trust you already know how you'd like to spice it up. Maybe enlighten the reader a little bit more on the comparison between the mice and the story of Hero. It's been a long while since I studied Greek Lit. And, remember Shakespeare used Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. Another happy ending :)

What I especially like about this is the relationship of Luke to the mice, like a God figure. And, isn't this the perception that many people have, like they are rats in a cage being experimented on? And, that they are constantly trying to escape from something? It's funny though that love always succeeds in the end, and sets us free. Excellent work, my friend....

[DarkAngelWriter]

Lol! I love this! It's so cute and almost had me in tears when it was talking about Luke crying... aww... :)