Biddeford High School - Olympian Yearbook (Biddeford, ME)

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CQ ID A U w E H 4: on bl Q w, 1 untain, P. Shapiro M0

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Y. J.. 121

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THE OL very real and happening to us. Our hearts beat at a fever pitch. We can hardly resist the temptation of rush- ing to the window and-closing it. James Bean, '38. THE WAY OF THE UNGODLY3' Life is like a boomerang, No matter what you do, Be it deeds of good or wickedness It always comes back to you. Once I was a genius: but that seems a thousand long and dreary years ago. What has happened since seems a nightmare without a chance of my ever awakening, and ending those million and one devils dancing in my brain. A genius, they called me, the greatest scientihc brain in the world, a man who can perform miracles with the science of chemistry. During those years, that time can never erase from my memory, I was perfectly happy. Why shouIdn't I be? I had my beautiful wife and the prettiest little son that ever lived: I had my friends and my enemies. Heaven forgive me, but how I hated those enemies. One whose name was Black was lower than his name. I-Ie, too, was a chemist, a great chemist: but, for some reason or other, he had been forced to leave his position in a great laboratory, and I had taken his place. I-Ie was a scoundrel and contrived in every way to blacken my reputation .I-Ie detested me and, with diabolical cleverness, employed the only dark incident in my youthful past to ruin me. It was a happening which I had en- deavored to obliterate from my mind and had tried to live dovm. Long ago as a young man of eighteen, I had been seriously injured in an automo- bile accident. There were six of us re- turning from a celebration, and, as we had had an extra glass or so, we were not very careful in driving. I was at the wheel, an incident which I have regretted since I have been on this miserable world. I crashed into a truck, and a young woman was killed. YMPIAN 29 My father's reputation and financial ability kept this horrible affair from the eyes and ears of the public. Some- way Black had heard of this story and with this, he was going to break up my home and take away the position I had worked for all my life. Idecided to do the only thing I thought anyone else would do. I de- cided to get rid of Black with the aid of my chemical knowledge. I clev- erly worked on a formula which was to produce a deadly poison. With this I intended to do away with my hat- ed enemy. I worked for weeks secretly in my laboratory at home. Then, finally, I was successful! My poison was completed. Black would be dead that night with my poison which would bring in a verdict of heart attack from the medical examiner. On that morning, I left for my official labora- tory with a song in my heart. Suddenly I was called home by an urgent message. My wife was hyster- ical with grief, for my son, my only son, was dead! Dead!! I-Ie had enter- ed my laboratory and had, I shall never know how, found the poison. Now, he was dead! I was mad with griefg I didn't know what to dog I hated myself so much that I termed myself lower than the vilest creatures of the earth. A few days later, we buried him: and then my wife lost her mind. She died a short while later. Those last few days were centuries of horror to me. I had killed my son and my wife, because I had plotted against a human life. I killed the only' things dear to me, because I was a chemical, a scientific genius. Now I, from my hospital bed, shall crush out this worthless life by ad- ministering to myself the poison which my brain formulated. I have nothing to live for, since Life's dearest treas- ures have been taken away from me because of my murderous plans. The Almighty has passed judgment upon another ungodly soul. Mary Derderian, ' 39.