[Tyr Zalo Hawk]: 712.Stories.ShortStories.BOOM! Success!.Draft 1

The first time I saw Doctor Professor F I thought I might have been safer outside, with the tigers. He had something in the ways of Einstein’s hair. It was grey and frizzy, the sort of thing a bird would nest in if given the chance, something he wouldn’t stand for on the majority of Tuesdays. His eyes were there, presumably, beneath the thick blast goggles, and his skin was the most wondrous shade of off-white. He had on mismatched socks, tie-dye boxer-briefs, and not much else. Most worrisome though, was the inescapable fact that he was holding a blowtorch in my direction, grinning in a way that puts any cartoon character I’ve ever seen to shame. Looking back on it now, it seems so silly that I was afraid of the tigers.
“Hi.” I managed to squeak out, hoping he wouldn’t view standard human greetings as a threat.
“Hellooo.” He sang back to me, fingers idly twitching at the firing mechanism of the blowtorch.
“They sent me to help you. Said you needed a umm… an… a uhh…”
“Have you ever been to Nicaragua? Or Finland?”
Whatever doubts I may have been facing in the ways of word choice melted at the chance to answer the questions of a man with the ability to incinerate me. “No, never! I’ve never even been outside of the state before.”
“Good.” He lowered the blowtorch and smiled, letting out a sigh of relief. “I gotta tell ya, kiddo, I’m gonna be awfully scared there for a bit. I’m about to think you’re one of those new-age ‘Power Rangers’ I’m eventually going to hear about on the radio.” Doctor Professor F closed his eyes, sighed again, and handed me his weapon. “Now, come along. We’ve a lot of questionable pursuits to commit ourselves to,” he stopped, checked his watch, “in Utopsia!”
I knew in that exact moment, holding that blowtorch as my employer walked towards a narrow door at the back of the room, that I had made the second largest error of my collegiate life. Within fifteen seconds of conversation I had managed to ally myself with a man who considered the Power Rangers as ‘new-age’ and dangerous. I followed him; I think that was my biggest mistake.
Behind the door there were stairs. These particular stairs were invisible beneath the blowtorch I was handling and the darkness that comes without interior lighting. Approximately 30 stairs later my fall was broken by my employer’s legs. I lay there for at least 15 seconds, staring upwards at shapes I couldn’t quite make out in the darkness, something which I am now entirely glad for. “Uhnnn…” I groaned. My head was throbbing, my body was aching, and I knew at least one bone had shifted to somewhere it shouldn’t ever be. “Profes-“
“That’s Doctor Professor F! I’m not gonna spend three days locked inside the Dean’s office with a shotgun to just be ‘Professor F’!” Each word echoed up and down the stairwell as he shouted, and my headache pounded in unison.
“Doctor Professor F, could you help me up? I think my arm’s dislocated.”
“Got that blowtorch with ya, kiddo?”
I was beginning to think he didn’t listen. Checking, I felt for the blowtorch which I had luckily landed atop of and nodded. My head protested at the movement, keeping me from noticing the growing pain in my left arm for a few more seconds. “Ya, I got it.”
“Then get yourself up with that! Utopsia can’t be kept waiting!” At this, Doctor Professor F leapt down the last ten or so stairs and opened a much wider door, casting a glow out that reached all the way to where the blowtorch and I were struggling to my feet.
Despite the pain, I was drawn towards the dull light like a moth to a bug lamp. Even though I knew that it could only be bad news to keep going, I lumbered on. Something inside my head couldn’t say no to the Doctor Professor, something which, at the time, my arm wished I didn’t have. In fact, my arm was trying to detach itself from the rest of my body and was therefore something I wished I didn’t have. I stepped in through the doorway and forgot my pain temporarily.
Inside there were tubes of questionably colored… mucks. A fog hung about the floor, and a thick cloud hung along the ceiling; both were changing colors. The far wall was covered in one dollar bills, each individually laminated and nailed to the wall through George Washington’s face. The other walls seemed liked they were made of Jell-O; I found out quite soon that they actually were. Something moved on the floor, but I couldn’t bring myself to look down and see what, just in case. Doctor Professor F had wasted no time in getting to work, and already had a sledgehammer raised well above his head. There was only a moment to check what he was aiming for, and my eyes couldn’t move nearly as fast as the hammer did.
There was a crash, a bang, and my employer hit one of the Jell-O walls with a                             thckkssshhkloop! I thought about asking him in he needed help, but about that time my arm kicked back into fighting form and I nearly doubled over. “Success!” the Doctor Professor cried out as he removed himself from the wall. He returned to the table, picked up whatever he had apparently just hit, and then proceeded to walk straight over to me. When he finally stopped coming, he was a centimeter from me, and orange gelatin was dripping off of him and onto me. “Eat this!” For a moment, I thought he meant the gelatin; then he shoved something into my mouth, turned away, and started for another part of his lab.
Once again, that something inside of me that just couldn’t say ‘no’ to this man started up the digestion process. As I chewed the god-knew-what, I was surprised that it was not only chewy, but tasted just like asparagus. My arm didn’t much care about it, and so I swallowed, so I could discuss it with him. “Doctor Professor F… about my arm…”
“I already will!” he shouted at me, swiping at the air.
“No, I mean…” I cut out, frowning at him. What’s the use in trying to communicate with a crazy person? I thought. And then, my arm felt better. It didn’t feel incredible, or amazing, it just felt better. A weird sort of awe and respect manifested itself inside my head, and I stared at Doctor Professor F for what must have been ten minutes. He raced around the room, throwing things at other things, hitting things with his sledgehammer, and shouting “Success!” every time something exploded. Things exploded a lot, as I soon realized.
When I finally regained some level of my composure, and when Doctor Professor F was finally too imbedded in the gelatin to quickly free himself, I decided to speak again. “Thanks for the, well, the thing that helped my arm.”
“What thing?” he grunted, finally able to yank an arm free.
“That thing you gave me.”
“Gave?” he repeated the word as though I’d just told him his mother had been diagnosed with cancer. “Why would you say gave?”
“The one for my arm, you know?”
“Oh!” He grinned at me, as though the cancer had been some joke between him and his mother. “The one I’m going to give you.”
Now it was mine turn to be confused. “There’s another one?”
“No, no. I’m already going to give you that one for your arm. It’ll happen about,” he looked directly at me, as though reading the time from my bewildered expression, “664 seconds from now.”
I should’ve realized before I spoke again that arguing with a man like Doctor Professor F was pointless, but confusion does a funny thing to people. “But… if you’re going to give it to me, then my arm won’t feel better until you do, right?”
“Nonsense!” he called back to me as he left the Jell-O wall with one final full-body tug. “If it’s going to happen, then you’ll feel better now knowing it will.” For some reason, I was getting more confused.
I knew that my argument made sense. I had taken courses in logic, I was captain of my high school debate team, and yet I felt like I was finally learning the truth because of the assurity with which Doctor Professor F presented his absurd comments. What was I to do? “I… can you explain that to me?”
“Kiddo, it’s like this.” From a table nearby he produced a chalkboard and from the recesses of his socks he pulled out some chalk. I still haven’t asked about that. “We’re on a line of time.” He drew a line that had a seizure. “And this end’s the future, and this other one’s the… the other one.”
“The past?” I guessed. It made him cringe.
“Yes, yes. Now, we’re over here,” his chalk pointed to the future end, “headed this way,” he traced along the messy line towards the other end, “which means that I’m going to give you the pill over here.” With the assertive nature of a grizzly bear, he hit the chalk at the very tip of the future end. “Now, get that pillow!”
I looked around for something pillow shaped while I considered what this all meant. We’re going backwards through time, and nothing has happened yet, which is                                              why things are happening now. So… my new boss is a lunatic. As I picked up the closest thing to a pillow in my vicinity and handed it to the Doctor Professor, I admitted to myself that he was, at least, very good at being a lunatic. “Just one more thing, Doctor Professor.”
“What?” he asked, as he brushed away the chalk from the board using the pillow.
“Why do you call this place Utopsia?”
For the briefest of moments before he started laughing, he looked at me like I was the crazy one. Between guffaws and unsympathetic chortles, he managed to inform me of the following: “Utopsia (Hahahaaaa!) isn’t the name of (Kekekekekekeke) this place. It’s the name (BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAhehehe... hoo!) of science!” As much as I hated to admit it, it did improve that clichéd phrase quite a bit.
“Alright, is there anything else you need me to do?”
“No, you’re going to do everything I need you for today. You can leave.”
It was on that note that my first day of my new job ended, and I was allowed to go back to my dorm. I exited the lab, climbed the stairs, and headed outside. The tigers were still there. This, for whatever reason, didn’t faze me in the least and, for what I can only assume was the same reason, they didn’t notice me. A few minutes later, back at my dorm, I was accosted by my roommate, who asked me question after question about the     university’s most reclusive professor. I only answered one question: “His name is Doctor Professor F.” and then promptly climbed into bed, and fell asleep.
The first few weeks were relatively uneventful in comparison to the first day. Every day I would show up at noon, leave around 3:30, and then take a long, cold shower in order to force myself back into my first reality. The part of me that couldn’t say no to Doctor Professor F flourished during this time, and my confusion about how this part of me came to be consumed most of my other time. I began to fall behind in one or two of my courses due to the length of some of my showers, and the extra time I spent contemplating my own psychological profile. It was a routine, albeit a weird one, that I simply fell into. The Doctor Professor wouldn’t tolerate ‘earliness’ – which would be lateness to the rest of us – or me not bringing something to feed the tigers every other day. Put very simply, I was going through what my parents liked to call ‘a phase’, and my phase worked me hard, all in the name of Utopsia.
After these first few weeks of employment, I was able to draw a few conclusions about Doctor Professor F using our encounters, and more than a few trips to the Internet for research. The first was that he had what scientists liked to call “Mnemophobia,” the fear of memories. This was the only logical reasoning I could find behind his backwards time theory, but when I brought up the word to him he told me that he had no time for any words that started with the letter ‘m.’ Looking back on our conversations, this turned out to be his second notable eccentricity. My third discovery was that I had gotten lucky my first day when he was wearing clothes. This turned out to be something he didn’t do very often, although at times I think I imagined he was wearing something for the sake of my own sanity.
It was my 30th day of working for Doctor Professor F when I finally saw him in full dress. White lab coat, a Hawaiian flower-print shirt, black sweatpants, tennis shoes, and socks that matched, he looked like a real person with no sense of fashion whatsoever. The only thing more shocking than his state of dress that day was his state of mind. He was… normal.
“Well, well, how’s my assistant today?” The words rolled out, instead of jumping like usual. He had also just used an ‘m’ word. It was something like seeing your grandmother naked, while you were naked.
“I’m... fine, Doctor Professor F.” I was gawking, none too subtly. “Are you okay?”
“Never felt better.” Your grandfather just walked in, just as naked. “And no need for formalities, just Professor will do.” Your entire family might as well have had Christmas naked.
“Is something different today, Doctor Professor F?” It had become habit by now; there was simply no stopping it.
“Today, my young friend, is my birthday!”
“And that means...?” I asked as gently as I could, trying not to snap him further into what I could only consider insanity. I know now that this question wasn’t quite appropriate considering modern society, but down in that lab the rest of the world seemed fake.
“It means I’m a year older, of course.” He looked at me like I was crazy, but not in the Doctor Professor F way, in the way of surface people who actually think things like ‘Is he going to snap?’ or ‘Oh-kay, someone’s had a bit too much to drink.’ I shivered a bit, and backed away from him.
“Well, okay, but why are you… dressed?”
Doctor Professor F laughed at me, in good humor, and shook his head. “My, my, you kids these days.” For a moment, I thought he might’ve just been playing a joke on me this whole time. For a moment, I thought maybe I had been driven mad and was imagining him like this from a padded cell. For a moment, I felt like a four-year old alone in NYC, crying for a mommy that just wasn’t there. Then, his left eye twitched in a familiar way and my fear dissolved. He was still in there, somewhere, hiding behind this normal exterior. I just had to play along and put together the puzzle.
“Ya, us kids. So, how old are you Doctor Professor?”
“Twenty-one! I’m finally a man!” He beamed at me and did a small jig. “I think that tonight I’ll start filing my taxes, drunk.”
“Sounds like a plan. Would you mind if I joined you?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“You? You sure you’re old enough to be drinking?” He looked over me with his murky grey eyes, trying to guesstimate my age.
“Hey, I’m twenty-one too, you kno-” The significance of the age the Doctor Professor had given to me struck my mind like a bag of live wolverines. It’s the least pleasant thing one can experience on the second day of a job, and worse to relive during your employer’s mental breakdown. He was supposed to be my age? Doctor Professor F, a member of the university faculty who had me send recorded messages to all his classes which mainly consisted of explosions and shouts of ‘Success!’ was, according to himself, my age? A piece of the puzzle had gone missing, and had taken half the other pieces with it.
He grinned at me. “Ahh, who would care if you weren’t? Tonight’s my birthday, and we’re going to celebrate it right.”
The significance of his planned nighttime activities also hit me just a bit late. Luckily, I was already dazed from the first blow. “Doctor Professor F, why are you starting your taxes now?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s nearly February.”
“No, it’s not.” I replied calmly, moving backwards one step. “It’s October.”
Apparently, this was news to him. Big news. His left eye twitched once, twice, then calmed again. “Well, that’s not too early, I suppose. However, it seems it’s either a bit early, or a bit late for celebration, eh? Oh well.” Apparently, doing taxes was more important to him than blanking out 4-8 months. It seemed to me there were more pieces to this puzzle than the box was telling me. “So, what sort of experiment shall we conduct today?”
“Don’t you usually decide that?” I asked, unsure of what else I could possibly say. The Doctor Professor had nearly twenty random experiments that he went through on any given day. He explained nothing to me, and the only time I was aware anything had happened was when one, or both, of us were embedded in Jell-O.
“Of course I do, but I thought there might be something you wanted to try today. After all, you’ve been mostly watching this whole time, right? Aren’t you curious about all this?” A grin spread across his face as he motioned around at the lab’s contents. “So, ask a question. Ask something that only science can answer!”
“Utopsia.” I automatically corrected him. This too was a habit I’d picked up, one which annoyed my roommate, my fellow classmates, and my chemistry professor. Doctor Professor F stopped and turned towards me, eyeing me.
“What did you just say? Is that some sort of,” he searched for a nationality, “Bulgarian terminology or something?”
“No, Utopsia. It’s the name of science.”
“U-top-si-a…” His left eye began twitching, it reached fifteen before he regained composure and shook his head at me. “My god, you kids do say the strangest things.” I had almost had him back then, just another little push and I could quit this puzzle and things could return to abnormal. “So, you thought of that question yet?”
I thought for about a minute, racking my brain for a question, something that would get him back to where he was before. “I want to know,” I said slowly, giving myself just enough time to think of the one question I needed, “What it is you don’t want to remember.” I might as well have shot him.
All the grey in his skin melted out of him and he started to shake his head. “Nothing, no. I just want to file my taxes.” He stepped backwards and knocked over several glasses of some questionable liquids as his voice grew louder. “I just want to drink! To drink and file taxes!” Doctor Professor F ripped off his coat and threw it towards me like it was eating him. “I JUST WANT TO ENJOY MY BIRTHDAY! THAT’S ALL!” His clothes started flying off, ripped from his body in his anger and soaked with the tears now streaming from his face. “TAXES! BIRTHDAY! DRINKING! HahahahahaHAAA!” He was down to his boxers and socks again, and, most importantly, Doctor Professor F was Doctor Professor F once more. With a small cackle he looked at me, noted the torn clothes and the broken beakers and narrowed his eyes at me. “Kiddo, we’re going to need another bottle of holy lemon juice.”
“I’ll go get the holy lemons, Doctor Professor.”
Things went back to normal just like that, and they’ve been this way for nearly six months now. I still don’t know what went wrong that day, or anything more about Doctor Professor F’s past, and I sort of prefer it that way. Because, god forbid, if he ever became like the rest of the people in the world, I’d be out of a job and the Jell-O corporation would see a significant drop in sales. Maybe next time he’s ‘sane’ I’ll try to pry into his life and get to know more of what he used to be. But that’s just a what if, and this is just my story so far. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of questionable things to commit myself to, in Utopsia!