Chapter One

THE HANGOVER FROM HELL

I’m hung over. My eyes feel like they’re bleeding, I had that strange dream again last night when I eventually did drag myself to bed, my head is about to explode all over the lecture theatre, and now the Professor is talking to me! Of all the people he could have picked on he decided I was the best victim. Isn’t that just dumb luck?
“There is nothing any more special about you than there is the rest of this class William, so why is it you cannot do what everyone else does?”
That’s Professor Johnson and he doesn’t like me because I’m not enjoying his class. The reason for this is because I never really wanted to study genetics in the first place. I am doing it to try and please my father, who is Professor Johnson. Imagine telling your only child that he is not special. Tut tut tut daddy and you’re wrong.
“I’m not a sheep,” I tell him, and listen to a few muffled laughs echo around the auditorium.
He smiles and then turns his back on his students who are all waiting for his next move, all eager, pens poised and ready to strike down upon their notebooks to scribble whatever the master may drivel. It really is pathetic, I mean we all know that we descend from apes, that our DNA is ninety eight percent identical and at some point many moons ago we decided to swing down from the trees and walk, and then continue walking. That is fact, and I understand how people like to know where they’re from and how they think studying our ascent to the planet’s dominant species will ultimately hold the key to predicting where, as a species, we will go next, but come on! It’s sunny outside, I’m still half drunk from last night, and I want a top up beer with my mates down the pub.
Professor Dad turns with my essay paper in his hands and clears his throat, “Well Mr William Johnson...”
Ouch. He knows I hate being called William.
“...on this occasion you are in fact special. When asked to discuss where next you think evolution will take this planet of ours and its species you chose superheroes and superpowers...”
Another echoing of sniggers, this time at my expense.
“...and for this you have received and extra special super F. Perhaps for next term you might think about switching to a Creative Writing course because the scientific world isn’t yet ready for red capes and invisible men.”
Now they’re all laughing at me.
What do they know?
Dad...ur, I mean Professor Johnson, is smiling, revelling in his spotlight. He’s enjoying watching his only child squirm, where he should really be sticking up for his off spring. Isn’t that part of the way of the world, to give life and then defend that life from all predators? Look at him, down there in front of the class. He’s like the aging wilder-beast which pushes it’s calf towards the pouncing lion so that he can make a swift escape.
The bastard.
I’m telling mum.
But seriously though, perhaps I should explain the essay. Having studied the evolution of life on earth, from the first single celled organism and then moving forward a couple of hundred million years to when fish heaved themselves out of the water and took their first steps on land, and then onwards still to apes and then us, it appears we have evolved as much as any species might ever hope to. I mean, what else is there for us? Are we going to one day wake up with another head? And if so, what purpose would that have apart from to greatly annoy the original? My essay was a serious theory of where humans as a species might be heading (excuse the pun).
Who was it that said people typically only use about ten percent of their brains? Was it Albert Einstein? Possibly, and although I know what was meant by this is that at any one given time only ten percent of the brain’s neurons are firing, it still makes you think. In my essay I asked a big ‘what if’, and I’m classing that what if as the same ‘what if we get down from the trees and walk for a bit?’, the apes once chose but...what if telekinesis, teleportation, invisibility and flight is our next step? Would it be possible to unlock some of that other ninety percent of our brain power to achieve this? And have people been living amongst us for centuries having mastered these feats? Or is this theory so outlandish that I deserved my F and need to stop watching daytime cartoons and reading comics?
“Class dismissed,” Professor Johnson announces.
I stand up. No more lectures for the week, it’s Friday and now I can get back to doing what University students do best...
“William, could I have a quick word please?”
A couple of my fellow students turn and smile on their way out of the lecture theatre. I slowly sit back down and begin packing up my laptop case, head down flat on the table and now pounding even worse than before. Why oh why do we drink? Now that’s an essay question I know I could answer and receive an A for.
The theatre clears and dad makes his way up to where I’m sitting, smiling the sympathetic smile I remember as a boy. The Professor’s disappeared now; it’s just me and my dad.
“How are you Billy?” he asks.
I shrug, not really wanting to make eye contact because then his suspicions will be confirmed. Bloodshot eyes = drinking too much and squandering my only chance of a decent degree following in daddy’s footsteps.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, shrugging again, and he nods at me and passes across my essay paper.
“It’s an interesting theory Billy but it doesn’t quite cut it for this class. Just keep your head down son, get your degree, and then the world is for your taking. You don’t ever have to think about another form of natural selection or DNA strand again after next year if you don’t want, but please just study hard now and choose the right path.”
I nod and dad stands up, patting me on the back and then making his way back down to his desk at the front of the theatre. For a while I stay seated. For how long I’m not sure. It was those last four words which dad had said to me that kept me stuck to my seat.
Choose the right path.
Was this the right path for me?
A first in Genetics and then off to spend my days in some lab somewhere studying the mundane, the occasional field assignment to the greenhouse counting how many types of tomato plants evolved from their one common ancestor. Is that the path I am destined to walk down? Because I want more than that and I know somewhere inside there is more for me in this world than that, I just need to find it...but first a pint.