The Waisting of Time

By Derek Berry Thorpe

Dr. William Sarsfield has impressed a world renowned professor during his lecture in London. The older professor, John Arthur Cowdry, invites William to leave his position at the hospital and join him in the tropical paradise of Barbados to complete the final stages of his research. The professor has invented a device that slows cell aging dramatically and many are eager to steal this secret of near eternal youth. But whats the real reason behind this sudden move to the island with all of his equipment and his many cats. Why are they being pursued by a spy from the defeated German army? He has many secrets that hes kept from William. But then one of the doctors is murdered and the corrupt Inspector James Templeton spitefully arrests the other for the crime. An ingenious plot to escape from prison is executed and a race to clear his name and secure the valuable anti aging secret takes the suspense all the way to the final page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491830871

Derek Berry Thorpe

Derek Berry Thorpe currently resides in Florida but he was born and grew up on the tiny island of Barbados where the majority of the novel takes place. He is a physician by profession with a sub-specialty in nuclear cardiology. He is a first time novelist but he has written a few screenplays for short films and he is a published cartoonist with a strip called ‘The Bradshaws’. His second work of fiction entitled ‘The Finger Prince’ is currently being penned. Dr. Thorpe is also an inventor. He has a US patent for a modification of the wrist watch.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Like a hungry child, the fire consumed the structure with voracious abandon. The flames licked the outside walls through the windows as if to taste the limestone. He looked back in anguish for only a brief second, as it was unwise to invest anymore emotion about the blaze at that time. The sun had already set in the west, but she left a scorching reminder of her recent passage by the wretched shadows cast in the October dusk. He could feel the madness within begin to effervesce again, causing him to strain taut against the chains that bound him to reason.

He was exhausted to the point of collapse, as he felt his chest heave above his searing lungs. He limped on through the coarse grass, ignoring the undiluted shards of pain, towards his adversary in the distance. He was afraid. Unmistakably petrified at the recent events and also distinctly afraid of himself and the sheer lunacy of his actions…

He hit the water with a bone jarring shudder and sank into the churning bosom of the ocean. He resisted the sweet urge to inhale in an attempt to reclaim some of the air that was knocked out of him. He somehow managed an uncoordinated flailing of his limbs in his quest to reach the surface and claim the object floating on the waves. But with his eyes closed in the terror, his epileptic swim only carried him deeper into the frothy waters… farther away from the reason for his insanity.

He finally opened his eyes and found that his world was nearly as featureless as with his lids closed. Almost as dark, except for the glowing image of the fire above. He made out the jaundiced flames snarling at the structure above and generally moved in its direction, like some aquatic moth. His muscles screamed for oxygen and felt as if they were swimming in thick syrup. He tried his best to keep going but after a few seconds of eternity he realized that he would not reach the surface. He was far too tired to carry on. He stopped moving his limbs and allowed himself to feel the currents tug on his person. It was not an entirely unpleasant sensation, he thought to himself. Realizing he was going to die alone in that watery cemetery, he tried to erase from his mind the secret that was bobbing on the surface above. It would be lost forever from his greed. Lost, thankfully, from everyone’s greed.

He inhaled…

CHAPTER 2

The last of the orange and tan leaves were falling like snow flurries across the park. They chased each other playfully on the ground between the shrubs and roots of the old oak trees. William Sarsfield was not dressed appropriately for the extended winter weather as he walked to the lecture hall on the other side of the square. He flapped up the collar of his thin medical coat and cursed the rising crescendo of winter. He regretted leaving the warm confines of the hospital on Appleworth road. Everyone had talked so much about the renowned Professor John Arthur Cowdry and his lecture at the medical school that day. The eccentric academic was in London for just two days. He had completed the great majority of work on his patients that was required for that day, and he played with the idea of getting a quick glimpse of the professor before he was due back on the wards. He was intrigued more by the maverick persona of the professor than by the lecture itself, of which he didn’t even know the title. He had known that the professor was considered a brilliant man who shrugged off a lucrative future to become a reclusive researcher, surfacing ever so often to divulge some snippet of wisdom to his peers. There were some, however, who branded him a harmless oddity who added little to the medical landscape and sought to discredit him every step of the way.

William himself was considered a bit if a whiz doc only two years now after graduation, having been awarded the clinical prize in his final exams for excellence. Since then, on many occasions as an intern and now as a senior house officer, he demonstrated a rare clinical acumen which impressed many a consultant and embarrassed a few. He was at times a bit overconfident with his knowledge of medicine but he tried his best to tame his attitude on the wards. He was well aware of the pecking order dynamic that existed amongst his superiors and how easily egotism flavored the daily routine. But he was also driven by the ethos of providing the best medical care he could offer his patients, despite the poor examples by some of his colleagues.

Dr. Sarsfield hated the winters in England. The cold factor, yes, and the ever present overcast skies too was most undesirable. But it was the lack of daylight hours that seemed to affect him the most, and he longed for spring to arrive. He walked with a quickened pace down the cracked pavement in the square and passed his favorite bench where he sat and watched nature pass by. Quite a few vexing problems had been solved there and even in the winter he braved a few minutes a week in communion with his thoughts.

Oi, William…’ang on a moment, he heard from behind and looked to see Ian Cairns, a fellow house officer trotting up the tree lined path towards him. He slowed his pace and allowed him to catch up. When they both fell into stride together Ian asked, Are you on your way to see Professor Cowdry’s lecture too?

No, I thought I’d like to take a few minutes but I’ve decided it’s not worth the bother really to see if the old geezer still has it, said William. What is it that he is supposed to be lecturing on anyway?

Something on aging I think, aah… ‘Defying time and staying young forever’, I think is the correct title.

Ian wasn’t a bad chap, William thought. Sensible doctor and all, just a bit too clingy at times, like when he wanted to read in solitude without having his opinion sought on every paragraph of a journal.

Come on, Gov’nor, coaxed Ian. What have you got to lose? And I’ll bet there might be a few birds there from the medical school to flirt with. Look, we can go for a couple of minutes to see if he says anything outlandish, then leave. I need the company. At least he’ll be on about a topic that he should know tons about.

Cheers, Ian… consider my arm twisted, let’s go find out then my friend, said William with a smile that was slightly too wide to be truly sincere.

They left the small wooded park through a rusting wrought iron gate and turned right on the pavement. The Library of the, St. Elias Cooke Medical School, was the venue for the lecture and they crossed the street one hundred, or so, yards further on. Once through the heavy oak doors and into the checker-tiled lobby, they followed well placed signs directing them to an auditorium at the southern end of the four story building. They joined a steady stream of suited men and women making their way through a small door in the middle of a paneled wall, which hung ornate portraits of past presidents of the university. A queue was beginning to form at the entrance and William could see that the auditorium was essentially full already. He tapped Ian on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow. William knew the layout of the library fairly well and he thought that they would be able to get a seat easier if they could enter from the back of the auditorium. They came to a narrow spiral staircase with a chain across it at the back of the large room. It had a hand written sign on it clearly saying that the use of the stairs was confined the library staff only, but William unhooked the chain and started up the stairs. Ian looked slightly out of his element and hesitated at the handrail.

Come on, Ian, William said looking back. I thought you wanted to see the lecture today.

Yes but is it safe and all?

I’ve been this way loads of times, come on will you?

Ian followed reluctantly up two flights of winding stairs and they both found themselves in a corridor leading to a set of doors at the rear of the auditorium. William went directly to the far right one, and turned the handle. Locked; as he suspected but he knew the mechanism was old as he had used this entrance to the auditorium a few times when he had known that the main doors had been bolted. They could hear the din from the audience on the other side of the wood paneled wall as William put his shoulder to the door and gave it three firm thrusts. It opened with a jolt and startled a dark haired girl standing behind the seats. William smiled his apology and waved Ian to follow.

Inside the lecture hall every seat had been taken and the flat apron at the back where William and Ian entered was the next best desired vantage point. No one was on stage as yet, just a lectern and a three quarter filled glass of water on a small table beside it. William didn’t fancy standing for the duration of the speech so he eased through the crowd and made his way down a few stairs and sat in the aisle. It was more than a coincidence that he sat next to Princella Henry, a lovely looking medical student from Coventry. She had red hair and fiery eyes and William fancied her quite a bit.

Hello there, Pricilla, mind if I sit here on the stair next to you?

My name is not Pricilla, it’s, Princella… and you may chose to sit anywhere you like Dr. Sarsfield, she replied.

William clenched his jaw muscles and shut his eyes in a silent moment of embarrassment. Why did he always seem to make such a fool of himself when he came in to close proximity to the opposite gender? He knew he would have to do something soon to impress her so he could at least erase the negative score. He was about to apologize for his gaff when Ian sat on the stair behind him, squeezed him by the shoulders and pointed to the stage below.

A portly gentleman with a prominent double chin waddled to the podium in a pinstriped waistcoated suit. He cleared his throat and welcomed the gathering.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues, allow me to welcome you to this annual lecture series at the Cooke library. We are privileged to have with us today the most esteemed, Professor John Cowdry. His theories on aging over the years have left us spellbound. More recently he cooperated with the British government on the physiologic changes of our soldiers returning from the front lines of this just concluded war against the Germans. Work, I must add, that has been given much commendation from the war office.

The master of ceremonies paused, fished a blue handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the area behind his left ear. Still smiling, he went on.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present to you today, speaking on the topic: ‘The Waisting of Time; We Need Not Age!’… Professor John Arthur Cowdry!

There was a pleasing round of applause that bounced off the library walls and seemed louder than its true decibel level. A few students and a handful of the older physicians stood, in anticipated appreciation. The clapping soon stopped however, and there was an awkward bubble of silence that grew in the room, as no one appeared from the black curtain at the back of the stage. The pot-bellied man on stage looked back nervously and cleared his throat again. Three more seconds passed, and the curtain finally swayed with movement and two men emerged from the cleavage in the cloth.

Professor Cowdry walked out to a short-lived rekindling of applause with a younger, taller gentleman who was a half step behind him. He displayed a concerned, protective look about him, with hands at the ready in case the professor tripped. They walked forward slowly towards the podium where the double chinned man still stood and exchanged pleasantries. Then there was laughter. A little chuckle at first, but soon a generous chorus. The subject of the mirth came from the two cats that followed the pair through the curtain. They sauntered nonchalantly on stage coming to rest on either side of the professor like two feline sentries.

William Sarsfield, sitting on the auditorium stairs, watched the doctor come onto the stage with his assistant and was mildly amused at the two cats which accompanied him, but he had his eye on something else. The form and contour of Princella’s lapped leg was exquisite. He wished he hadn’t gotten her name wrong because he really did want to get to know her and wondered what he could do to impress her. But then, he silently questioned if he had really come all this way to admire the fleshy ellipse of this female’s calf. The microphone whistled like an angry kettle and he snapped from his mini trance and listened to the professor’s first words.

He fished for his flimsy, silver reading glasses, finally retrieving them from the fourth suit pocket he tried. His hair was dyed mostly brown, but the long strands of the combover that tried to conceal is bald head, displayed many uncooperative grey. He coughed, whipped his burgundy wool scarf around his neck and began.

I would probably guess that close to one hundred percent of this audience believes that aging and senescence is an inescapable fact of life. I would also wager that you all presume that the wrinkles and brittle bones and a fading memory are inevitable with the passage of time.

By the time he paused, the collection of students, doctors and academics were paralyzed by the power of his speech. He surveyed the assembly and strummed the wrinkles on his own face like a harp at the opera and continued.

My friends, I’m here to tell you that there are ways to arrest the unkind hand of time on our bodies. My research over the years has brought me closer to the secrets of long-lasting youth!

The room, for some reason was growing warmer. A few people began to fan themselves and shed their white coats while others ignored the temperature change and remained fixated on the lecture. Professor Cowdry himself didn’t seem to miss a beat despite the parallel beads of sweat racing down his side-burned face.

…Consider a closed cylindrical glass tube half filled with sand. Let us say the glass tube represents one’s life span and the sand is time itself. If one were to turn the tube upside down the sand would fall to the other end in a virtual block, wouldn’t it? The professor asked.

"Let’s say this represented some one-celled protoplasmic creature with the shortest of life spans…thus to demonstrate the life span of, for instance, a butterfly, one would increase the passage of time of the sand by creating a constriction in the middle of the glass tube. A WAIST, if you will, he paused, ostensibly for a sip of water, but it was almost certainly a well designed interruption to hold a rapt audience in suspense. Now the image of an hour glass is familiar to us all isn’t it?. Sands moving through a narrowed glass tube? What if our life span were represented by an hourglass? What if it was expected that an hour, was what we were supposed to be allotted and ‘thank you very much’? Now suppose I tell you learned people today, that I am perfecting a device which would take the form of a chain in this analogy. A chain that would be put around the waist of time and drawn tight to make it even smaller. Tighter and tighter, such that grains of sand might only tumble through one at a time. Thus creating a life span controlled by the strength of the ‘waisting effect’. The possibilities emanating from this concept are staggering to say the least…"

There had been a gradual increase in murmur and movement in the room since the professor had begun to talk about the hourglass model. He continued for another quarter of an hour, pleased at the effect that his speech was having on the minions riveted before him. He teased and toyed with their emotions and challenged the boundaries of conventional thought. At each controversial pause in his speech there was an animated leaning to and fro in the crowd as colleagues whispered comments and criticisms to each other. Many times the double chinned man had to raise his hands for quiet.

William Sarsfield, still sitting on the auditorium stairs, was glad that he had come. The professor had not disappointed him at all. The spectacle of his demeanor with his outlandish theories coupled with is cats on stage, made good theater. From his vantage point, Dr. Sarsfield could even see the garish deposits of dried spittle that had accumulated in the corners of the professor’s lips. A testament to his fervor. He however had not made any headway with Princella. She skillfully ignored him throughout the whole lecture. He made a passing comment to her but she only nodded blandly in response and turned again to the front. He was determined to leave her with a positive impression of himself before the proceedings were over and he desperately thought of his options as the professor fielded questions and comments.

From as far back as his early school days, William loved to show off to get a girl’s attention. He was almost powerless sometimes, to stop himself from doing some silly antic merely to set himself apart from other suitors. He was good looking enough with his curly, almost black hair and stippled brown eyes but yet, here he was trying to attract Princella’s favor. He found himself raising his arm to ask a question in a packed auditorium of peers and academics. Even after the double chinned gentleman pointed in his direction and he stood to his feet, he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to ask.

Professor Cowdry…thank you very much for your provocative talk…aaahh. I’d like to ask you firstly if this data of yours comes from theory alone or have you conducted clinical trials? William began.

A bit of both, Sir, replied the now tiring professor.

I notice that you did not go much beyond the ‘chain’ analogy, as to the physical form of your ‘waister of time’. Does it work internally as in the form of a pill or elixir or is it some bulky contraption?

The audience recoiled at the use of the word contraption and William knew immediately that he had made a mistake by challenging the professor. He thought about sinking down to the stairs and cutting his losses.

It’s not a pill young man, but I’d hardly call my invention a contraption, retorted Dr. Cowdry. What is your point?

It just seems to me that unless an agent working systemically such that it can effect all cells…say via the circulation in an equivalent distribution, that you would have a situation where only the tissue acted on directly by your apparatus, will lose the aging stimulus, and those left out, will carry on aging as before or at least unpredictably.

There was a brief silence in the auditorium. Every pair of eyes, including Princella’s, were fixed upon the young doctor standing in the aisle. In their collective expression, it was clear that the question raised made absolute and perfect sense. One of the cats yawned and sauntered behind the podium to emerge on the other side near her feline companion. The professor stroked his sparse grey hair and replied.

It seems the science of cytokinetics and the parameters that govern it are not well understood. Even though your conceptual thinking is sound, the reason why this is not a problem is because cells talk amongst themselves in a complex and precise way, and what happens to one set seems to be communicated to the others. Does that answer your question young man?

Not really, Sir…begging your pardon. Because since cell types in the body vary from bone to blood how can this uniformity of communication be achieved with your apparatus? William asked.

He was a little more certain of himself now and really had no intent on being rude. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Princella looking up at him with the faintest of grins on the corners of her pretty lips.

I am quite sure that…ahhh, my research shows that this very phenomenon of delayed aging depends on this dysuniformity of communication between cell types. It turns out, in some spectacular paradox of nature, that those cells that age fastest, are those that possess the slowest communication times, he paused and drank the remainder of the water that was left in the glass. Young man, I am not sure if I should be upset with you or not, because I was not prepared at this time to reveal that bit of research to the public…but you forced my hand, Doctor, bravo.

As William began to sit back down to nods of approval from many in the auditorium the doubled chinned man pointed to another physician for a final question. With outstretched palms to cushion his decent he came down directly on the sharp edge of a walnut shell that had rolled to rest on the step. The pain was bright but he was able to muffle an exclamation in the crowded room. Princella looked across and saw the nut shell sticking out from William’s palm. Cherry red blood trickled from a small gash as the professor answered the question posed. William glanced to his left to see who could have thrown the nut shell there. Still wincing in pain and sucking on his wound he scowled at a pale skinned physician dressed in a full length brown leather coat. The glare was wasted however as the gentleman stared straight ahead down to the podium where the professor was winding up his final response. The gentleman chewed away on his macadamia nut with a closed mouth, enhancing the prominence of his jaw muscles, never looking away from the podium.

Are you alright, Dr. Sarsfield? Princella asked.

William immediately thought that he might be able to parlay this minor incident into something more fruitful as he nodded a forlorn ‘thumbs-up’ sign.

Here, let me have a look at your hand, she whispered.

Her hands were