THE SECRET OF DEATH

James is an irascible little 9 year old....

THE SECRET OF DEATH

It was when James Pentrick was only nine that the rest of his life was planned out before him by tragedy. But first, a few thoughts about the boy himself

His father Ozzie Pentrick was a professor in nuclear physics with a penchant for avoiding nasty explosions and his uncle, (Benjy Pentrick) and dad’s favourite brother was an expert in earning a fortune by doing nothing discernible with his time. His mother, on the other hand, if asked to describe her main attributes would have suggested she was any man’s as long as he had the right tackle in acceptable proportions. She was quite open about her appetites and her husband (who may or may not have been James’s father) was understanding to a fault.) After all, nuclear physics is a demanding subject for a man to wrap his brain around and other matters sometimes have to take a back seat.

And all was well with the family, because that’s what they were to all intents and purposes. Even the presence of a second adult male didn’t raise many eyebrows, though the woman who delivered milk did nudge her and wink at her and tell her how lucky she was with so much man-flesh around.

It was at the time that disaster struck (and it did, with a predictable and nauseous set of consequences) young James was developing a theory about life itself, and being a nine year old boy with a stupendously intellectual family tree supporting him, his thoughts tended to the deep side of brilliant though they hardly ever waved a flag in the direction of reality.

He decided there was a very theoretical error in human DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid to you and me) and filled a half a stolen school exercise book in his attempt at solving the problem when the aforementioned disaster struck. His mother’s husband, the brother rejoicing in the forename Ozzie, contracted something dire and terrible during an intellectual conference from Miss Alice Sponger, secretarial assistant to the Master of an obscure Oxford College, during a nocturnal exercise in her boudoir, and before you could say Jack Robinson in Double Dutch, he passed away, became an ex-professor. Miss Sponger, thankfully, was quite alright after a coughing fit that almost did for her �" almost, but not quite.

The little family in which James was toiling over his problem of the shortcomings of DNA was distraught when a stretch-limo pulled up outside their front door and a coffin-shaped box was delivered, and their angst was further enhanced when they discovered that the coffin-shaped box actually was a coffin in which resided the festering remains of Ozzie Pentrick together with his notes (in Latin, his preferred language) concerning a particularly fascinating nuclear reaction.

The human reaction, though, was dreadful.

Ozzie’s legal wife howled like a demented cat when a small child has stolen its favourite fish finger, his brother, the man who may well have been James’s actual biological father but nobody was sure, couldn’t stop weeping at the loss of a brother who, among other things, had provided him with free access to his wife for as many years as he could, with any accuracy, remember, and James himself had lost the man he called dad even when he wasn't in trouble. And it rang a bell very loud in his mind. DNA. The answer must lie in that and maybe even a returning of the festering remains to life might be achievable by the correct use of DNA.

It took a fortnight for the overwhelming grieving to fade into little more than a general feeling that something might be missing, and James resumed his personal studies.

He even got to pronouncing Deoxyribonucleic Acid without stuttering and experimented on Jules the next door neighbour’s pet dog on a theory of his concerning a return from death only to discover that a tonic he had contrived to mix out of a variety of intriguing things from a chemistry set he’d received last Christmas had the opposite effect to that he intended because the animal died on the spot and resolutely failed to yap or snort or even move as much as a paw thereafter. He had not discovered the secret to eternal life or even solved the riddle of death.

It was when he had just buried the dog (after dark so that the neighbours had no idea that their pet was an ex-dog) he remembered something his legal if not biological father had told him about experiments.

“It is the essence of science to experiment,” he had said, “and many of the greats of the past performed some remarkable experiments on their own flesh…)

That was it! The neighbour’s pet hound was dead, but he, James wasn’t, and he was pretty sure he must have added something wrong to his tonic.

So he set about mixing it again.

And this time it looked different and when he sniffed it, it smelt different.

So he sipped it, carefully, because although he was absolutely sure that he’d got it right this time, absolute certainty isn’t proof. See how clever he was?

He had just swallowed a toxic teaspoon of his DNA repairing tonic (his name) when there was a knock on the door.

He was alone in the house and he knew that visitors were always welcomed, so he opened the door and recognised his visitor straight away because wasn’t his image on the frontispiece of his favourite book, A Brief History of Death?

“Well hello there!” he said, “what brings you here?”

You can tell from the way he uttered those last words that he was, if nothing else, a precocious lad nine year old. Because most people, when faced with the grim reaper whose image they know well, might be a little more polite, don’t you think?

“Come along laddie,” said his visitor in a sepulchral voice, “that mixture of yours just might be what mankind has been looking for since time immemorial, and we can’t take that secret going round can we? You’re coming with me!”

© Peter Rogerson 18.06.23

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