=1 "I am myself this ocean"
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I am myself this ocean
You remember Prof. Imi Noa Mangus? But have you heard about his mysterious disappearance? I was working in the same institute as he, and we had our laboratories next to each other on the same floor. My work is on the genetic effects of certain medicines and he was working under a government grant through the military on nerve poisons in chemical warfare. We were very good friends, and naturally we met frequently, borrowed instruments from each other, etc., and thourgh he was always reluctant to speak about his work, as a scientist I easily guessed what he was working on: trilurgic acids and their derivatives.
In the evening before his disappearance we were together, only the two of us in his laboratory. He was visibly upset. He told me he had just received a telephone call from the chief of staff ordering him to stop the work. The chief had received the latest reports about his brain child, an extremely powerful but simple chemical which even in the weakest dilutions or microgram doses had a lasting effect on the hypothalamus, the most primitive part of the brain. Other parts were absolutely unaffected. Though strongly tranquilizing, the chemical induced neither sleep nor drowziness, but a very strange intense happiness for which he had as yet found no explanation.
Dr. Imi Noa had tried it on himself and on countless animals with no ill effect whatever. A strange, long-term result, he pointed out, was the conviction, and with it a deep feeling of gratitude, that life was essentially good and that man was not separate from the universe but a homogenous part of it, as a wave is part of the ocean.
Now recently, after the military people had used it in actual warfare in some jungle country, the enemy soldiers were found sitting immobile, cross-legged under the trees, each with a beautiful smile on his face. They mildly objected to their removal, usually with the words: “Please let me alone: I’m perfectly happy here”. But to the consternation of the high command, this state seemed to be highly contageous, and the victorious army, simply by marching through the contaminated region or by coming into contact with those already affected, was also influenced. They were all found sitting together with their prisoners, the same happy smile on their lips, and the 3-star general leading the division had only this comment: “I am, myself, that ocean of bliss, filled to the brim.”
When these reports came in from the field the chief of staff suddenly realized the danger. If some joker should spray this chemical over the capital from an airplane – over the White House, the Pentagon, the congressional halls – it would be disastrous. He broke out in a cold sweat at the mere thought of it. Hence the telephone call.
Before I left that evening, Prof. Imi Noa gave me a parcel for safe keeping. The next morning when I stopped by his office he was nowhere to be found. The door to his laboratory had been sealed, and when I asked the night watchman I was told that three military looking people had come in a black car and taken him away.
I myself shall be very busy in the next few weeks. I have a heavy flying schedule ahead.