read the first part here.
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Day: 64
Journal of Steven Silverman
It has been over a week since I last spoke to Algernon. I don’t plan to talk to him ever again, or perhaps merely for a long time, at the very least. Instead I have taken to preoccupying myself with literature: Of micros and men, the lawnmower fluffy, and other classics have helped settle my troubled mind.
I’m now at a corporate level at Starschmucks, six figures a year. I certainly do miss having colleagues to talk to, even if they thought lesser of me for my condition.
Yasmina and I finally went on our first few dates, although it did not go fully as I had expected. How could such a once vibrant and brilliant woman seems so incredibly dull and slow now? Listening to her, or anyone else (for that matter) talk is as if pulling teeth. This damnable drug, for all of the benefits and brilliance it has granted me, from the respect and now fear of my peers, to the love of a good woman, it has now robbed my life of all mystery and joy. How many licks does it take to get to the centre of a Tootsie roll pop? Approximately 74 to 137; The airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow? Approximately 11 meters per second; Rotation of the Earth at the equator? Approximately 1,674.4 kilometers per hour.
What more is there to care for when the calculations seem so obvious? When the rest of the world is so terribly far behind?
I’ve been having nosebleeds, like Algernon did. I suppose it is a side effect of the drug. No matter, I will persevere.
Day: 66
Journal of Algernon
(Dictation taken by voice to text translator.)
Dewe am sum-ting wwong wid Awg-ew-nun. Dummeh Stevie nu can seesie id, nu cawe, dummeh docta Singies am tuu busy gettin himb nu-nu stick tu cawe.
Awg-ew-nun feew sickies, da head huwties am gettin weaw baddies, booboo wawa comin ou ob ebewy-whewe, feew su weak. Ib Awg-ew-nun am gun gu fowevah sweepies, nee Stevie tu kno dat Awg-ew-nun fowgib himb. Even noaw dat Stevie am biggest smawty ebah, himb am stiww biggest dum-dum.
Stevie, ib yew find dis, Awg-ew-nun wub yew. Am sowwies dat we nebah gut to be bestest smawties togevah. May-beh, ib the staws am in da wite pwace, we gun see each-udda gain, whewe-ebah smawties gu wen dey sweepies fowevah.
Yew wiww awways be Awg-ew-nun fav-ow-wit hoomin.
Gud-bye.
Day: 67
Journal of Dr. Yasmina Singh
I returned to the laboratory in shock to find Algernon in a state that can only be described as ‘decrepit’.
His once luxurious white coat has devolved into a dull and silvery grey, he has lost over half his body fat, his eyes seem sunken in to the point of barely being visible. The only way that I can describe it is that he is rapidly degrading.
We checked his blood, his vitals, a brain scan and everything is rapidly shutting down
I had gotten so caught up in Steven that I utterly neglected Algernon, and worst of all, I’ve made a mockery of my career through this conflict of professional and personal interest.
Algernon looks fit to die, his IQ has degraded to that of a standard fluffy and still falling, he’s broken, bordering on brain death.
Oh god! Steven too! I thought it was merely a trick of the light, but those little patches of grey in his hair… I have to counteract the drug! I have time! Surely if I go back to R&D I can whip up an anti serum? Yes, certainly, I’ve got time, I’ve got time!
Day: 69
Journal of Steven Silverman
Yasmina told me about Algernon and my own potentially inevitable fate. I took him up to the tree, our tree, the place we used to go after every test, back when it was just he and I, back when the world seemed so perfectly simple.
He barely understands me anymore. He’s just like everyone else now: slow and pitiful. I’m so sorry for what I said and did to him in anger, and now I’ll never have the opportunity for him to properly understand that apology. He just sat there up on the hill with me, chewing on my laces as we watched the sunset together. he looked up at me with these dull and vagrant eyes, portraying just how empty his head really is now.
“Wub yew, nice mistah!” he said. He doesn’t even have the capacity to remember my name.
“My name is Steven, remember?” I asked him.
He just nodded and went back to lightly chewing the laces, he’d forget again in seven or so minutes.
God, I miss my friend.
Day: 72
Journal of Steven Silverman
Algernon died last night. Yasmina says he had a seizure and just “stopped working”, as if everything started shutting down at once.
I think I’m feeling it too. I don’t want to die, and even if I just return to how I was, it’ll feel like dying.
I’m starting to forget things, little equations are starting to become harder to peace together, people are starting to outpace me again in conversation, and my boss is looking over at me with disdain for struggling to keep up the quota, I suspect I’ll be back to cleaning toilets soon. I- I will not change. I refuse!
I’m taking his body, up to the hill, under that old oak, I only need a spade for him, and- and a length of cord for myself.
We came into this damnable world as “smarties” together, Algernon. Let us leave it the same way.
Yasmina, I am sorry, but we both know that you never really loved me, only the man the drug made of me. I don’t blame you for that, I am- or rather, I was, something truly stunning, and you’re only human after all.
Look after yourself, keep your head held high, and remember, you couldn’t have known, even I couldn’t have, and I was a genius.
Sincerely yours: Stevie Silverman
-The end-
