Page:Stirring Science Stories, February 1941.djvu/32

 person who was telling this fantastic story.

"Ah, yes, the results. They were really very interesting. And very successful, too. In fact, they were much more than merely successful. You ought to find them startling.

"When I had finished that operation and a tiny silver sliver blocked the small hole at one side of my forehead, two weeks ago to be exact, my brain commenced to feel inexplicably light. I knew my brain had undergone a transformation. From the book shelf I took down a ponderous volume on mathematics. To test myself I began to solve a complicated problem in my head. It was done with no struggle at all!

"From then on I expected the impossible. I was not surprised when, after reading the evening paper, I found that I had memorized it entirely. My memory was astounding, and every little detail of every little experiment remained firmly etched in my brain. I did things that I could never have done without such a power as I had given myself.

"I took radios apart and put them back together successfully. I memorized whole pages of Shakespeare and the dictionary. I could add an infinite amount of numbers in my head with as much ease as two and two. I was the genius of all geniuses! I was the superman of which men dream!

"That day two weeks ago saw the greatest man in the world; yet five days later

"My discovery had transformed me from a poor, struggling boy, unknown. and friendless, to a talented man, equipped with a dozen times as much mentality as I originally had. A glorious success, borne aloft by a few drops of golden molecules! Yet a glory that was doomed for three days later I experienced something queer. My abilities were remarkable and more than I had hoped for, but strange things had begun to happen. In the early dawn of that morning, I threw myself out of bed and into the rays of the rising sun. I took a step toward the closet—and nearly fell! It was only by calm deliberation that I was able to walk safely about the room.

"It was like that the entire day. Every little act that I heretofore had done unconsciously was now dependent upon my continuous attention. At every movement, I had to think. A reversal had taken place; my mind had become the slave of my body.

"It did not take me long to realize the reason. The realization numbed my befuddled brain; my serum had not only built up my mental capacity, but it also had linked habit-formed actions with the voluntary and thinking control. I could do nothing without special consideration of it!

"Imagine my surprise, then terror. Dreadful thoughts surged and heaved in my brain until I was driven almost mad." The speaker paused, and the bitterness in his words sent a twinge of pity through the lawyer. It seemed the truth, and the strange man was convincing. The lawyer let the papers, which he had been holding, drop from his sticky hands to the surface of the blue, splotched desk blotter and relaxed against the chair back. The head of the speaker was bowed. It straightened suddenly as a shiver passed through the man, and, with a nervous lick of his lips, he continued.

"My emotions were finally conquered and my true status took form; I was unable to have any more common everyday habits. I must always be forced to think. It was consoling to know that it was a small