by Mark Tufo
“My God!” he exclaimed. “What is happening here!” The doctor jumped back from the eyepiece, bumping into the adjoining table and thereby ruining whatever remained viable from Dr. Pinchey’s experiment. The doctor snapped off another roll of film and headed back to the pharmacy, heedless of traffic and the winter weather, not even stopping to put his top coat back on.
Ben was coming out of the back room with the supplies his father asked for when he saw the crazy man from earlier come through the door. A small bell mounted on the top of the door announced his presence. Ben broke out in a sweat, fearful that the man was here to complain about Ben’s shoddy work in producing the film, a job which he was neither qualified nor allowed to do. That, and he probably wanted his overpayment of money back. How was he going to explain to his father that he had pocketed the money? Ben did the only honorable thing he could think to do, he backed up into the supply closet.
“You there!” the doctor said pushing past an older lady who was getting some tonics for her sick husband.
The pharmacist and the lady both turned to express their displeasure at the rude interruption.
“Sir, I will be right with you,” the pharmacist said calmly but curtly.
“This cannot wait!” the doctor shouted.
“Sir, is someone in trouble?” the pharmacist asked. The doctor had completely usurped the older lady’s spot.
“Trouble? Yes trouble! Hundreds are in trouble! Possibly thousands, most likely millions!”
The lady backed up further, no tonic available today was going to cure whatever ailed the madman in front of her.
“Sir, have you been drinking?” the pharmacist sternly asked the unkempt man who stood before him.
Ben shrunk further back into the closet as the voices escalated, fearful that at any moment his father would call him out and demand an answer.
“I most certainly have not!” the doctor said indignantly. “I need this film developed now!”
“You say thousands, possibly millions may be at peril, but you would like me to stop and process a roll of film for you?”
“Are you daft, man?” the doctor queried testily. “That’s what I asked for.”
“Get out of my store!” the pharmacist yelled, “or I will call the police!”
“Dad’s gonna have me arrested?” Ben cried to himself. Going steady with Becky seemed a lot less important at the moment.
“You don’t understand,” the doctor said with alarm.
“I understand that some people cannot hold their libations,” the pharmacist said. “Now get out before I throw you out.”
“I will pay you ten dollars,” the doctor said, pulling out a gold coin.
“I’ll be right with you, Mrs. Timmons,” the pharmacist said, grabbing the roll of film from the doctor.
Mrs. Timmons 'harrumphed' loudly; neither the doctor nor the pharmacist paid her any heed.
The pharmacist burst through the closet door to gather some chemicals he would require. The sight of his son cowering in the corner almost made him drop what he had come in for.
“Ben?! What are you doing in here? You startled me,” the pharmacist asked, not bothering to wait for a reply, getting what he needed and heading to the photo booth.
“Uh, just gathering some towels,” Ben said to an empty room, although if his father were to have waited he would have noticed that he was holding bottles.
The pharmacist found himself sweating much like his son had only a few hours earlier. His customer, although most certainly clinically insane, had paid handsomely to have this film developed fast. What came out in the chemical solution looked like a badly shot horror film. The image was grainy and the details were difficult to make out. The best the pharmacist could tell was that there appeared to be an army of humans carrying either swords or spears. They looked to be defending themselves against grotesque monsters that dwarfed the humans by a magnitude of 10 to 15 times, and could only be from another planet like in an H.G. Wells story.
The pharmacist came out from under the black-out blanket full of resignation. His wife certainly would have liked the flowers he had planned on buying her. “I am sorry sir, but I must have done something wrong preparing your pictures. They do not seem to have come out correctly,” he said apologetically as he handed the pictures over.
The doctor took the pictures greedily, never pausing to say anything as he headed out the door. The pharmacist would have thought him rude if not for the ten dollar gold coin shining brightly up at him from the countertop.
“It’s a war of some kind, I’m sure of it,” the doctor said to himself, repeatedly shuffling the pictures over and over. “How can they possibly hold up against a foe so devastatingly large and ominous looking?” The doctor was truly fretting. Having discovered the ‘Hugh-Manns’ as he had begun to call them in his head, he felt ultimately responsible for their fate. “What kind of God would I be if I left them to their fate? I will not forsake you as our God seems to have done to us.”
The doctor did not sleep at all that Saturday and only an hour or two on Sunday. His constant pacing amused Sausages for nearly a whole half hour before he retired back to his pillow and dreams of mice catching.
The doctor heard a soft knock on his door. “Who can that be at this hour?” The knock came again a little louder. “Hold on, hold on, I’m coming. Marissa?” he said as he opened the door. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Hello Father. I hardly think three in the afternoon on a Sunday is an unruly time to visit.”
“What do you want?” he asked a little more brusquely than he should have. Lack of sleep and stress were pushing him to his limits.
“I came to check on Sausages,” she said curtly.
“The cat?”
“Yes, the cat, Father. Sausages, remember him, he’s been your roommate for three years now.” The sarcasm was thick in her voice, concealing the disappointment she still felt at her father’s dismissive attitude toward her.
“I’ve had that cat for three years?”
“You’re incorrigible, Father,” she said as she pushed on by. “Thank you for inviting me in by the way, and you look terrible. Have you not been sleeping?”
“I cannot sleep when the fate of a world rests on my shoulders.”
“Really, Father, I thought it was women that were supposed to have a flare for the dramatic. Where is the cat?”
The doctor pointed his finger down the hallway. At least that was where he last remembered seeing it, had to have been two weeks ago.
“Hello Sausages!” Marissa said excitedly.
The doctor felt a stab of remorse remembering when his daughter used to greet him that way. “Once I save the world, perhaps there is still time to save our relationship.”
“Father!” Marissa yelled. “Sausages has no water! How many times have I told you just to fill a bowl up every couple of days and I’ll come by to make sure he has food. How hard is that? He cannot take care of himself.” ‘Like I had to,’ she wanted to add.
Her words fell on deaf ears; her father had left to return to the lab completely forgetting that his daughter had even come to visit.
Marissa came out of the room with the large cat in her arms. “Typical,” she said. “I’d take you with me Sausages, but I think you rather like being left alone.” As if in response the cat jumped out of her arms and padded quietly back to his pillow that was rapidly losing heat. “I guess that answers that. I’ve given up, Father, I truly have,” she said as she shut off the light and closed the door behind her.
The doctor was halfway back to the university when he realized that he had walked away from his daughter in mid-conversation. ‘Oh dear. Well, I’ll tell her how sorry I am the next time I see her,’ he thought to himself, then put her from his mind as he always did.
Into the wee hours of the night the doctor labored, prepared slide after prepared slide showing the same but different scenes of horrific carnage. At times the good doctor raged, at other time
s he cried. He barely acknowledged the rising Monday sun until his colleagues began to come in to the laboratory.
“God, Hugh, you look awful,” Professor Lancing said, coming closer. “And you smell to high Heaven. Have you gone home at all? Oh, that’s right, this is home to you.”
Professor Frank Lancing was the closest thing Dr. Mann had to a friend. If by friend you meant a person that you said more than a handful of words to on a weekly basis, than Lancing was his friend. Professor Lancing had initially known Dr. Mann’s wife years previously, and had been the one to broker a date between the two. Lancing had always felt somewhat guilty when Eloise had left. Perhaps that was why he always tried to throw a rope of friendship out to the drowning man. But Mann, much like Sausages, seemed to prefer a life of solitude, isolated from all others.
“I need to show you something!” Dr. Mann fairly cried to Lancing.
Lancing had already turned around and was walking away by the time Dr. Mann responded to his query. That was their typical repartee. Lancing would ask a series of questions, and Dr. Mann would summarily ignore all of them. Oh it wasn’t that he did it on purpose, it was just that he was functioning on such a different plane of existence he could barely acknowledge the fact that anyone was talking to him.
As Lancing retraced his steps, Dr. Mann pushed his chair away from the scanning scope to give Lancing the needed vantage point.
“What am I looking at?” Dr. Lancing asked as he put his face to the eyepiece, an incredulous tone in his voice. It was rare that Dr. Mann spoke to anyone. To ask someone to confer on his work was unheard of.
“Please look,” the doctor begged, a look of grief etched across his features.
At first Dr. Lancing couldn’t make out much of anything, but as his eye adjusted he was able to grasp more of the chaotic imagery that unfolded before him. “Is this some sort of joke?” Dr. Lancing asked, pulling back from the lens. “Because I do not see the humor...”
“How long have you known me, Frank?”
“Long enough to know you have only used my first name once, that was your wedding day, and I have never known you to crack any sort of joke. I always found that to be a character flaw of yours.”
Dr. Mann waved his hand in the air and pooh-poohed the last comment.
“So what am I looking at then?”
“It’s a war against our brethren, Frank. For that is what they have to be, they use tools for God’s sake!”
Dr. Lancing placed his eye back against the viewer. “It would appear so,” he said standing up. “Are those dust mites that the little creatures are fighting?”
“Hugh-Manns.”
“What?”
“I’m calling those ‘little creatures’ Hugh-Manns.”
“Clever,” Dr. Lancing stated.
Dr. Mann shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t categorized them by Species and Genome yet, but if this war continues to wage I might not ever have the chance.”
“Are you sure that this is not just a localized incident?”
“I had initially hoped that also. I pulled samples from fourteen different areas and in each and every one there were battles in differing degrees of success for the Hugh-Manns.”
“Maybe that is the state of their world, Hugh. What do you propose we do about it? I’m not sure we should intervene any way.”
“Frank, the state of our world is war, do you not sometimes wish that we had a God that took a more active role in our fates?”
“God, Hugh? You are saying you want to play God to those microscopic beasts?”
“They are not beasts, for all we know they could be our fore bearers. And what size are we to our God, Frank?”
“Just because they use tools, Hugh, does not mean they are human; monkeys have been known to use implements to enhance their lives,” Frank said with a little more heat than he had intended.
“I am going to the Dean with this, Frank. I was hoping to bring you as an ally but I see that you are not convinced that there is possibly a whole civilization I have discovered that is in dire jeopardy of ruin by a larger aggressive monster.”
“I did not say I would not help, Hugh, I am just saying that we should learn more before we start to meddle.”
“Saving lives is not meddling, Frank!” Dr. Mann shouted. The entire laboratory came to a momentary standstill from the outburst.
“And what do you propose, Dr. Mann?” Lancing said coolly. “The eradication of the dust mites? They serve a purpose too. I think you need to learn more before you make any sort of rash decision.”
Doctor Mann had turned on his deaf ears and was packing up to go and visit the Dean.
The door had long shut after the doctor had left when Professor Lancing walked away from the scanning scope. “It seems to me that they are giving as good as they get.” He shook his head, more over the confrontation he had with the doctor than what had appeared under the microscope.
* * *
Dr. Mann huffed and puffed his way to the administration building. He had been absolutely sure that the professor would be at his side making this plea to the Dean. “Fool!” he shouted as he entered into the Dean’s office.
An attractive brunette named Bernice greeted him. “May I help you Doctor Mann?” she asked pleasantly enough. Inwardly she cringed, the doctor looked like he hadn’t taken a bath in three or four days and he smelled like it was double that time frame.
Dr. Mann completely ignored her words and avoided her desk, but the receptionist had youth on her side and was able to quickly stand up and block the doctor’s access. His eyes focused on her as if finally acknowledging her existence.
“Doctor, you cannot go in there without an appointment,” she said, trying to back pedal from the smell whilst also holding her ground.
“Lives are at stake, young lady. I do not have time for the trivialities of appointments.”
She was close enough that she felt that she should have been able to smell the stench of liquor on his breath, but all she caught was a whiff of anguish. “Be that as it may, Doctor, you cannot just barge in. The Dean is an extremely busy man.”
“Oh come now miss, you cannot be so young as to be that ignorant. We both know the falsity of that statement.”
“What is all this racket?” Dean Saunders asked as he opened his door.
“I’m so sorry Dean Saunders, I know you told me that you did not want to be disturbed. But Dr. Mann has been adamant that he needs to speak with you.”
The Dean did look upset, he hated to be bothered with all things academia. He was much more interested in the social benefits his position afforded such as the high society parties and the frequent visits from co-eds who needed some gentle guidance, preferably in his bedroom. The board of directors knew Saunders as a Dean was as ineffectual as tissue paper in a hail storm, but his ability to raise money for the university was unparalleled and thus made him an invaluable employee.
“Dean Saunders, would you like me to have the Doctor escorted out?” the receptionist asked.
The doctor was indignant. “Dean Saunders, I hold something here that I think you will be very interested in.”
‘I doubt it very much,’ the Dean thought to himself. ‘Unless those pictures are of that cute little number I was with last weekend.’ Now the Dean’s interest was piqued.
“Thank you Betty. I’ll handle this.”
“It’s Bernice, Dean Saunders.”
“Of course it is,” he said, opening the door wide to allow the doctor entrance.
“What can I help you with, Dr. Mann?” the Dean asked, shutting the door on an indignant receptionist.
“We slept together, how could he forget my name?” she asked her morals softly.
The doctor could think of no argument better than what he held in his hands. He thrust out the photos, nearly punching the Dean in the nose.
“I’m going to assume you want me to see these photos,” the Dean said, backing up a step from the over-zealous doctor. The Dean grabbed the
proffered shots and went behind his desk to sit down and look at them. With each picture he began to rise up like he was sitting on a hydraulic jack and switching pictures tripped the handle. “What exactly am I looking at, Doctor?” Color flushed throughout the Dean’s face. He had an idea what he was holding, it was the biggest fund raising campaign ever seen was what it was. But he would let the doctor go through the technical aspects first.
“You are looking at vegrandis terrigenus, or small human beings.”
“I am not completely ignorant, Doctor, I know what the Latin translation means.”
“I am sorry, Dean Saunders, I was just trying to be thorough.”
Dean Saunders waved the apology off.
“Of course as the discoverer of this as of yet unseen species, I would like to call them Vegrandis Hughmannus.”
“Clever, Dr. Mann. But it fits, we could do wonders for the University with this discovery.”
“There’s more, Dean.”
“Do tell.”
“It is of a much graver nature though.” The doctor paused for dramatic effect. “Vegrandis Hughmannus is locked in a mortal combat with pulvis mite.”
This time the Dean did need a clarification that Dr. Mann was hesitant to give. “English, Dr. Mann, perhaps I have let my studies lapse entirely too far.”
“Dust mites.”
“What?” the Dean asked querulously. “You are telling me that these miniature people are at war with dust mites?”
Dr. Mann handed over another series of photos that clearly showed the conflict, outlined in black and white.
The Dean sat back in his chair, his lips pursed at the savagery in the photos.
“See how they use their weapon?” the doctor said, pointing to a photo where the Hughmannus was piercing the side of the attacker.
“The dust mites are so much larger, how do they survive?” the Dean asked the doctor, referring to the Hughmanni.
“I think much like Early Man…” the doctor started. The Dean looked up at him. “By brain power and weaponry.”