Resurrection Of A Pulse

 

Adam’s thoughts were crowded with her memories as he ambled his way to college.

To him, the girls ogling at him were almost non-existent. He used to come to college only for his attendance, which carried marks. He didn’t need lectures to top his examinations. Books were enough for him.

The professor came and went on about reactions of amines. But Adam’s mind wandered.

Where had he gone wrong?

Her body had already tolerated the vagaries of eighteen months. Time was running out; if he delayed anymore she would never wake up.

Suddenly, an epiphany came to him. He almost jumped up in exultation. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? He knew it was the correct answer, but he’d have to research in what proportions he should use it, and which compounds will promote its activity.

That night, he decided to carry out his plan. He took out a glass vial containing a green coloured, viscous liquid. Carefully opening the lid, he filled a beaker with fifty millilitres of the liquid, and restoppered the vial. After adding the other necessities, he set the beaker on a burner, and waited till it formed a murky blue coloured paste.

While he was preparing his mixture, there was a strange frenzy upon his face. His eyes glowed with a villainous light. His brows were drawn together in intense concentration. His light brown hair was dishevelled, adding more appeal to his looks. If anyone had seen him now, their blood would have run cold. When the fiend possesses the good, it is more frightening and terrifying to visualize.

After ten minutes, he switched off the burner and let the beaker cool down. He sat down on a rickety chair. As he observed his invention, a mad desire to laugh loudly seized him. He was so very happy. In hours, he may be able to see Samantha again, to feel her luxurious hair, to drink in her tantalizing smell, to hear her tinkling and golden laughter. He was going to resurrect her pulse. SHE would rise again. Resurgam. 

After so many days of numbness, a memory was thrown at him by his subconscious…..

‘‘You are so naive, Adam,” Samantha told him as he played with a stray strand of her golden, silky hair.

“Naive? And why is it so?” he asked absent-mindedly.

“Why did you give your research paper to Bill?” she asked imploringly.

Adam laughed.

She glared at him. “There’s nothing funny.”

“Really? We get to be alone after so many days, in my garden, just because mom is out of town, in the midst of purity, of nature, of bliss, and all you want to do is to reprimand me for giving my research paper to Bill?” he asked incredulously.

“No, that’s not the only thing that I want to do, but I don’t like the way you go on giving out your home assignments and papers to people who do not work and then come and whine before you. Why don’t you understand, they use you.”

He took her face in his hands and looked into her chocolate brown eyes. He gazed into her eyes until she began to calm down.

“Now that’s better. Stop worrying about me. No one can use me except you, understand?” he told her softly.

“It’s so strange, Samantha. We’ve been together for the last seven years, you know me so well, but still worry so much. Relax, breathe.”

She couldn’t move. He was leaning closer now, aiming to close in even the smallest distance between them…

 

Adam opened his eyes; he could feel her even now. But the pain of losing her was heart-rending. What if he failed again and she would be gone forever?

The fear of failure geared him to work with more frenzied energy. He checked his watch: ten minutes to twelve. His way was clear, he only needed to act.

He sharpened his self-chiselled knife: it was a piece of beauty; even Samantha had admitted it, though she was afraid of it. Why was she afraid of it? It has been my most important tool in aiming to make her heart pump again.

He shook his head as her fond memory came. 

Her severed pulse would be functional once again. She would come back to him.

 

The bright glow from the street lamps dimmed the radiance of the full moon hanging low in the sky. Adam was walking towards the Heaven Park; the ghostly, lounging outlines of the trees from the forest were now visible to him.

There was a reason for choosing that forest. It was close to the cemetery where her coffin was. Most particular of all was the fact that no one dared to approach the thick forest located so close to the cemetery at that time of night.

By the time he reached her grave, he could not stop imagining how much pain she would have suffered when that homosexual had attacked her. He had taken care of that lesbian, ensured that she had suffered a million times more than she had made her suffer. Samantha had to lose her life just because her murderer’s love loved her…

Adam was feeling agitated; he wanted to end this fast, and get her back.

He had brought everything that he needed in a small black carry bag. He was grateful that he lived in a small town; it provided him the privacy he wished for his work.

He looked at the sky, the moon was descending into the eastern sky, it was nearly dawn. Adam sat cross-legged on the cemetery floor, beside Samantha’s coffin. He whispered, “I have to do it. For her. If I am living, and she is lost, I would resurrect her. That is the basic law in my universe, which could never be a reality without her.”

He had taken a leaf out of the Egyptians’ book: he had preserved her dead body for almost eighteen months; she hadn’t decayed a bit. Today, he was really proud that he was a prodigy in chemistry. As lifted the lid of the coffin, he marvelled at her beauty again. Her youthful bloom was retained; decomposers had not been able to become her chamberlains. He examined her wrist; it felt as if she had freshly died, the eighteen months only an illusion.

Taking out the blue paste which he had earlier prepared, he applied it on her wrist. He then opened her mouth, and with the help of a spoon, placed some paste in her mouth. He would have to wait for two hours. That was the maximum limit, as he knew the chemical would be rendered ineffective after two hours. He sat down expectedly, holding his breath, waiting for the miracle to happen.

It happened, and Samantha opened her eyes.

Adam was not even able to swallow.

“Samantha,” he said tentatively.

She looked at him, her eyes frightened.

“Sam…”

She stopped him in mid-sentence. “Who are you?”

His world wheeled, there was a hollow ringing in his ears.

Samantha woke up with questioning my identity.

I have resurrected her pulse, but have I resurrected her own self?

Have I really succeeded?

As if to provide a confirmation, Samantha added, “Who am I?”