Tempus Genesis
Michael McCourt
Tempus Genesis
By Michael McCourt
Copyright 2012 Michael McCourt
1.
Humiliation is like a car crash, it tends to take place in slow motion. Oliver’s was almost complete. He stood before a lecture hall of some of the countries premier neuroscience students, who looked on sneering and sniggering at him. His memory would distort the low level disdain being offered by his peers into full blown howling ridicule. All encouraged by the Professor Emeritus Sir Leonard Blooms.
Oliver had not planned to show his hand during the end of term Professorial lecture at UCL. He had arrived late having overslept, drawing his first unwanted stare from Blooms. Oliver’s navigation through his PhD had already been troubled, treacherous at times, and he knew he needed to be off radar for a while. However, he had slept late as he had spent the night until eight am unlocking what he believed to be a discovery greater than Ferrier in 1873, Dale and Loewi in 1936, Katz and Fatt in 1950. In fact he knew none of the enigmatic UCL hall of fame could come close to the magnitude of what he believed he had unearthed. Three things were to conspire against Oliver, the amphetamine he had taken at 3.53am, the bottle of champagne at 6.11am to both celebrate what he thought he had found and to help him get some sleep. Lastly the ever present sense he had of a life extraordinary that would be his in time to come. Oliver slid into the theatre seats shuffling across and past others, to sit close to his frowning friends.
“Where the hell have you been?” Mary whispered across to him.
“Studying late,” Oliver replied rubbing his tired face.
“You look like shit,” Mary said and sat back to continue listening to Blooms.
“Thanks,” Oliver muttered.
He tried to focus on the lecture. He was tired and wired at the same time, he had been asleep for a little more than one hour. He sat there and for a moment was troubled by the restless sleep he had. During that semi-conscious state, neither asleep nor awake, images and thoughts had swirled around his mind. In those moments of phantasmata he had sensed both euphoric optimism and perilous danger in equal amounts. He had experienced a weakening connection with his own mind in that half-sleep hour and this disturbed him.
Blooms lectures were notoriously dry affairs. Age had not mellowed him, if anything his bitterness had crystallised and this was played out in his words and manner. Blooms stood with his nose proudly in the air, by the lectern on a stage in the three hundred seat lecture theatre. With rising tiers and rich wood finishes it was both austere and scholarly.
“Let me remind you once more as I do all students, every year at this time of year, what it is that makes University College London a world leader in Neurosciences. It is because those who have tread the halls of this great institution never forget or lose sight of our mission in life,” Blooms drew a slow pompous breath then exhaled, “We seek to make fundamental discoveries about brain function and behaviour, to teach and train the next generation of scientists and clinicians, and to transform our ability to diagnose and treat neurological and psychiatric disease.”
Blooms paused and looked around the room, holding his gaze with members of his audience long enough to unsettle even the most confident student in the room.
“And so here you all are,” Blooms continued, “Clinicians and scientists, future surgeons, consultant psychiatrists, professors, well possibly professors, scientists from bio-molecular studies, statistical computation, from Oxbridge to Harvard the future of neuroscience is in your hands. Not mine yours. So ask yourself this question, in thirty years time what will my contribution have been? What will I have added to the body of knowledge or added to the good of mankind? That is why you are here, why you have been selected and don’t ever ever lose sight of the expectation upon you as graduates and alumni of UCL. Remember fundamental discoveries or to transform our ability to help others, that is why you are a part of this programme and hopefully a part of UCLs future.”
Blooms paused once more and smiled a sneering lofty smile, “and if you are not up to the challenge, you know where the door is.”
Whether the students were anyway inspired by Blooms words was hard to tell, but not one was without a clear message. Deliver or you’re out.
Minnie, Oliver’s oversized and unusually tall close friend, whispered in his ear “I suspect our Professor has never had a blow job.”
Oliver smiled and whispered back, “He is definitely missing something from his life, I thought companionship Minnie but it could be the blow job.”
Minnie leant back in his seat and tapped his nose knowingly.
“Right, current research,” Blooms yelped with a slight bark, inducing a jittery jump in each student. He stuck with the term student to maximise his position over the attendees in the hall, despite some of them holding higher clinical qualifications than even him. He read through thick lens glasses citing the papers in front of him on the lectern.
“Neurobiological mechanisms of the placebo effect, Presynaptic and Postsynaptic Interaction of the Amyloid Precursor Protein Promotes Peripheral and Central Synaptogenesis, Antidepressant Actions of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors,” Blooms continued through a dozen or so topics and accompanying synopsis. His enthusiasm matched by few in the hall. Even Blooms in his cold world with little feeling sensed a restless crowd, though only after several minutes.
“Right, enough of others good work, you are now facing year two of your four year doctorate and I’m expecting great advances through this groups work over the next few years. You have been working with your supervisors, well most of you have,” Blooms glanced towards Oliver over his glasses, “and by now should have some hypothesis forming, so for a change this year, let me hear some of your bright ideas.”
Blooms stepped forward and gestured to his audience with beckoning arms, to share their fledgling ideas. It would be hard to know if he did this to make up for losing their interest or to punish them for ceasing to listen to him.
“Jones, come on, I know you are close to an area of study, what say you kick us off.”
A cheap shot was the general view in the room, for Blooms to pick probably the most vulnerable yet equally bright student. Inevitably Jones stammered out some incomprehensible answer.
“Great, another,” invited Blooms, smiling expectantly. Eventually a small number chipped in brief comments and a short run of sharing was underway between the thirty or so in the room. This closing section of the final lecture of the term would have limped to it’s conclusion without bloodshed, until Blooms saw Oliver’s arm raised enthusiastically.
“Ah, Harris, so pleased you have joined us,” Blooms had not seen Minnie pull Oliver’s arm back down several times already.
“Professor Blooms, I’m still working on this but have a general area, examining memory, sir,” Oliver smiled.
“Good, tell you what Harris, why not come down here and share what you have so far?”
If the next six minutes were indeed a car crash then the car had flipped and rolled several times, leaving Oliver with only a disorientated memory of the incident. One minute in and Oliver felt he was talking through a giant marshmallow, in Chinese, such was the look on Blooms face and many of the faces in the hall.
Oliver scribbled with chalk on the blackboard that Blooms preferred to retain over modern fangled devices.
“Imagine memory bundled up like a ball of elastic,” Oliver slurred and then sped up erratically in his speech.
Oliver drew a long curved line by a tight chalk scribble, “What if you could unravel that memory and stretch it, out of the hippo campus area and back, far back.”
Oliver made no sense at all for a further minute. Minute three and Oliver was trying to rec
over his explanation on a theory that he acknowledged was ‘out there’ and re-explain with more detailed thoughts.
Minutes four and five were Blooms turn to deliver a red faced tirade at Oliver, something about the good name of UCL, respect for others in the room and the absolute discrediting of the work of Professor Robert John Dyer. Oliver had not recalled referencing Dyer.
“I accept the professors theories were eccentric but I think I may have found some causal evidence that could substantiate them,” Oliver had in fact said ‘casual evidence’ and ‘substishiate’.
Towards the end of minute five witnessed the arrival of sniggers and laughter. Then a final comment and a most pointed comment on the only acceptable substance to help prepare for lectures was coffee and Oliver entered minute six. This was the longest minute as Blooms dismissed the hall and Oliver had to endure thirty eminent students file past him as they left. Blooms had kindly invited Mr Harris to stay behind.
Oliver waved as his friends, Minnie, Jamie and Mary filed past, Mary reached out and stroked his clammy hand.
Finally, one of the last students to leave smiled at Oliver and commented, “Ziggy says there is an eighty percent chance you are fucked Harris.”
Oliver wavered where he stood, thinking that remark was actually very witty, seconds before he passed out.
2.
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