Medina High School - Mirror Yearbook (Medina, NY)

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25 . TIIE MIRROR their thrones, yea, quiver in the fear that their slave, mere man, shall become immortal and, who knows, perhaps usurp some of the mighty knowledge and supremacy of the very Gods them- selves. My son,' he said, his voice sinking low, 'I and I only have discovered the great secret of LIFE. I have discovered it and made the means to perpetuate its marvels to all generations. Come, my son, draw close and l will teach it to you,' he conclud- ed, setting the glass apparatus Very, very carefully down on the table. All that weary night, he taught me the secret, that had taken him long years to discover. Wlien at last we were finish- ed, the pink tinting of the sky heralded the approach of morning. Cautioning me to guard the apparatus carefully and not to touch it, he lay himself down to rest and dream about his new found wonder. He slept the sleep of the exhausted all that day and the following night until he awoke after having slept twenty- four hours. 'Now son, we will test this product of my efforts,' he re- marked finally after studying the various tints of coloring in the 'Elixir of Life' He said this, trying to be calm, but I could see that he was trembling like a leaf and that his nerves were crying out at the immense energy that would be required to drive him forward to test the fruit of the work of his life. I was silent respecting his state of feeling, and wonder- ingly watched him go nervously into the next room and bring in a hypodermic needle and a small cat. But such a cat! It was lean and gauntq one ear was half off, its whiskers were torn, bent and drooping, it had the scars of many fights, and its fur was off in some places and coming off in many others. It was so very filthy and dirty, old, wretched and forlorn that my heart gave a great bound of pity for it, and for what it was to undergo. Holding the cat on the table, my father trembling, slowly filled the needle with greenish liquid' and injected it into the cat. He watched for a moment, but nothing happened. Then slowly before our very eyes, the transformation took place. The whiskers, so old, bent and torn, straightened and replaced them- selves, the old scarred head from which the flame of life was passing, raised itself profoundly, and carried its two alert ears forward, the eyes brightened, the old fur was replaced by new, fu I l

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THEMIRROR 25 THE LOST HELIXIR OF LIFE EARL Go1.DMAN H E CAME into our village one night, from where or how no one knows. He was old and withered with age. His gray beard formed a frame for his weather-beaten and wrinkled cheeks, and his steel-gray eyes glittered like pin points from 1111- derneath his shaggy eyebrows. One day he told his story to a group of which I was one. I was a boy at the time, but so vividly and intelligently did he tell his strange tale, that to this day I recollect it and now for the first time I will try to tell it. lt is, as nearly as I can remember and as my literary qualities permit, as follows: Many ages ago my fatheri was-an alchemist, that is, he was devoted to the science of trying to produce gold from lead, pre- cious gems from glass, and most important of all-to discover the elusive 'Elixir of Life,' that precious formula for which the best brains of ages had been seeking. When he started he was a very rich man, who could afford to hire the best of instructors and to equip a laboratory which surpassed any established before. The day came at last, when my father reaching the peak of all the information teachers could teach him, found himself penniless, except for all his knowledge, his hopes, and his won- derful laboratory. The latter seemed to be the only thing upon which he could rebuild his shattered fortune, and, with this end in view, he retired at the age of thirty-five with only me, Cmy mother having died some time beforej to a secret retreat in the mountains, a cave, where he had moved all l1is apparatus and chemicals. That is all I remember for about the space of ten years, except that my father seemed to grow more absorbed in his work every day. t'One evening, when I was about the age of fifteen, my father rushed in, a complicated glass system of laboratory apparatus mounted on a platform in one hand, and a glass vial of a thin greenish liquid in the other. 'My son,' he cried, 'our fortune is rebuilt. The fame of our glorious name shall spread from one end of the land to the other. It shall travel through the valleys and down the rivers until it reaches the ocean, wherein the Gods and demons dwell. There it shall make all the rulers of mortal destiny shake on

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THEMIRROR 27 the scars healed and behold, a young alert cat sprang forward and disappeared. Man's brain had conquered tin1e. After this final proof of his achievement, my father gazed at the place where cat l1ad stood, thinking what, I do not know. H 'Son,' he finally said, 'the world must not know of this, and further than this, he declined to explain. Later I was destined to remember this sentence and regret with every breath, that I had not heeded it in regard to myself. For the next year, my father mentioned never a word about his discovery, but f1'0111 one or two words he had spoken I divined that he was seeking an antidote for the 'Elixir of Iiifef I-Ie discovered it, after working steadily for a whole week, never stopping to eat or sleep. Strange to say he did not seem at all eager or excited about it. After he had satisfied himself as to the nature of his new compound, he calmly went to sleep. The next morning, he was still preoccupied with his thoughts, walking sadly around. In the afternoon he carefully explained to me the nature of his antidote which he said if taken i11 the same quantity as the 'Elixir of Life' would put a person back to the same age, from whence he had started taking the 'Elixir of Life,' and allow him to die after a normal span of years. The next morning he was dead, having for some reason which I have never found out taken a deadly poison. Now, this cave, wherein I had lived for fifteen or sixteen years, was in such an out-of-the-way place, that I never before had seen a human being other than my father . I knew, how- ever, all about the world through my father, who personally taught me, to the slightest detail, all about it. But which was most important of all, he neglected to tell me the country in which we lived and for that matter even the continent. The same day he died, I buried him in our mountain re- treat and taking one last look around, took a package of food, a weapon and went out after rlrrinktng of the 'Elixir of Life' Gentlemen, he cried, gazing earnestly at us, his steel gray eyes fiashing, to this moment I regret that act and with every breath curse my father for inventing that concoction of the devil. I have wandered over the world, I have seen Empires rise, fall, decay into memories and eventually forgotten. I have 1.