In my work at the university science lab, my team made a breakthrough regarding cancer regression. We found that in human cells, there's a small organic structure that functions like a little clock. It can tell us the age of the cell and how hard it's working. Experimentation has shown us that chemicals can speed up the little clock, resulting in the cell working harder but also its premature death. However, a new chemical cocktail my team discovered can slow and even pause the cell's life. This means a lot for cancer patients as it means a cure is at least on the horizon. In the meantime we can slow progression and even pause it in rare circumstances.
But that would be years, possibly decades away, beyond my lifetime. I'm a seventy year old man! My wife has already passed and my good-for-nothing children seem more interested in my estate than anything else. They don't deserve the happiness that my life has bought them. For that matter, I've spent my whole life working too. The names and faces of all my friends pass before my eyes and it's all I can do to stop missing them.
My research was the best part of my life, certainly the most meaningful. But now... well now I'm old. I miss the good life I had. There's nothing wrong with taking my research and... repurposing it to suit my own needs. Cancer cells are complex because of their mutated nature. They don't behave according to the normal rules. But normal, healthy cells on the other hand, are perfectly predictable.
I informed the department chair that I would be retiring at the end of the quarter. He was disappointed but accepted that it was my time. I asked that my caseload be lightened by assigning me all the introductory courses. I would like to finish some projects in the lab but couldn't be burdened by the needs of the advanced students. I had one last job to do.
Late one night, I stayed in the lab far later than everyone else. "Unfinished business." I was busily reading the lab results from a cell sample when a sophomore surprised me.
"Oh, professor! I didn't mean to startle you. Um, I was on my way home from my lab and saw you in here by yourself. Are you ok? Do you need help?"
I settled at staring at her neck. Life is wasted on the young. So much life and beauty, her tanned skin possessing more spirit than my own pulse. And how arrogant of her to assume I need help. I'm old, not infirm. Her body betrayed the temperature of the lab; hugging your notebook to your chest doesn't fool me.
"No, thank you. Would you mind closing the door on your way out?" It really is out of my character to be so gruff, I just didn't want to be distracted. She was wearing a knee-length jacket that hugged her hourglass figure. Her face was narrow, lips painted red. Her ponytail flipped ever just so as she turned to leave. Her ass, dancing to and fro. I remembered what it felt like to be excited by such a sight. I can still remember the sensations of rubbing my hands over a tight ass, feeling between the cheeks, imagining pushing myself between and reaching around to grip her breasts. My wife was very beautiful too. I was a horndog in my own college days but, despite my discoveries, tenure and children; I count my fidelity as one of my greatest achievements. But it's easy when your wife is already everything you want and more than you deserve.
The sophomore left and I continued reading. This was the 50th series I had conducted in my late-night experiments. And this was the best result apparently I could hope for. Clocks are an interesting phenomenon -- if you rearrange the hands and everyone else had no way of knowing the difference, then to them you've changed time. But what if it happened like that for real -- that there's a master clock and if you change the placement of the hands, then you really change time? Or at least, you would for everyone's perception of it. I had a better than nothing chance of rearranging time into its proper order, but it would only affect me. I would be retiring in a few weeks; all that was left was to put my life in order. Luckily, "time" had already done much of the work for me.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
The best I could describe it, it's like watching television in HD for the first time. It's like having your first breathe of the ocean air and immediately finding you love it. It's that first time you remember wine is delicious, none of that cheap swill but the real $40 bottles. I immediately remembered falling in love with my wife. But as painful as it is to say, I had to let that life go.
Selling my house, my car, the dumb time-share I was tricked into back in the 80s, donating what I couldn't give away, I simple disappeared as I was. There wasn't a trace left of me, not even a body to bury. I was just gone.
And now, my name is Russel Kovak, age 22, and looking to go to college. I figured my grandson wouldn't mind me borrowing his name, seeing as how he's only 3 years old. Interesting twist on the old identity theft scheme to find that you've inadvertently been awarded a degree from a prestigious college! I rented an apartment, bought a beater, and went to the admissions office to check on the application that I had submitted during the spring.
My virility was apparent immediately: my eyes wouldn't stop spinning in my head! Three sororities on three consecutive blocks were competing for freshmen, and they were putting on the ritz. It's one of those things where you always knew it was there but had forgotten or misunderstood what it meant. It meant that every day going to school (I never called it work) I had overlooked the beating hearts and voluptuous forms of the most astounding creatures on the planet. I had learned from a chain email that Lions can mate over a hundred times in two days time. Right then, I felt like giving the jungle cat a run for its money...
