A Story by Jagmohan Singh Khurmi

A Strange Way to Die

Human misery hath no ends.
Nobody knows where it begins, where ends.
Human condition is subject to ups and downs but jerks do the real job.
Tears gather into my eyes as I repeat this !
Never had I imagined that circumstance could push a piece of humanity to such an extreme.
Only the last week I saw those wretched creatures lying on an aluminum table. Japanese and Canadian scientists bent over them are filled with awe and wonder. Their pale faces turned to stone with astonishment. I look into their eyes again and again but get no answers. They are either too dumbfounded or too shocked to convey anything. I gather courage and walk to the table and see the hell. Many electrodes and wires come and go into the two fragile near-skeletons; last attempt of mankind to gather the magic potion that did the thing. Again and again DNA is to be picked up from here and from there. Plastic coated hands are handling them very carefully, poetically. Historical wonders. Incredible.
A storm is on its way. All theories of evolution will finally break down. New hypothesis will be drawn. New facts, previously unknown, will come into light. Question, postponed for milleniums, will be finally braved. Gaps will fill. New gaps will appear. The genetic research, which is becoming absurd and controversial with every passing day, will take new turns. Textbooks will be rewritten.
I decide I can make nothing out if it. I am a layman. Better not to disturb them. I move out.
Outside the greater minds wander. Three graybeards stand near a car. They are talking. They always talk. Their talking matters. I walk to them. Security allows me to get near, they are talking Greek anyway. The tallest one is prematurely bald. I know him for a biologist who works from pschyic angle about a theory of development of Freudian subconscious. He also went into astro-physics and dabbled in study of sumarian ruins. The other two are authorities in branches that are too advance for us to appreciate, so those sciences haven. t been named yet !
When I talk to them I address them as . doctor. . They are very kind. But they always use very complex terms. Their fast lane jargon is spiced up with mind pothering metaphor. The tall one reminds me half jokingly that I promised to teach him the malvai dialect of Punjabi. He thinks it may help him in his research, especially in the present problem.
" This never happened anywhere, anytime. This unique case is the first of its kind in the recorded history. We have gone every possible test, made infinite observations of the bodies. And it has not taken us anywhere. ", he said.
" You mean", I asked, " They are quite normal ? "
" Yes, sir. They are no different from normal apes. ****** as we call them, or the langur found abundantly in most parts of India ", he replied.
" But they were perfectly normal people a couple of years ago !", I exclaimed.
" That is inside our hypothesis, ...

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