The Alchemist

The Alchemist


The long corridor was an eerie place at the best of times, it always reminded me of a long tunnel the walls were half bricked, where the brickwork stopped, tiles begun they went all the way to the arched ceiling carried on over to the other side then joined up with the brickwork once again. The floor was highly polished; it always reminded me of marble. The whole corridor echoed with the sound of voices and footsteps. At night it was always more pronounced.
Behind one of the many doors on this corridor, Dr. Peter Mendez had a laboratory. Nobody but a few select people knew what Dr Mendez was doing there. Often Mendez would be at the lab all night into the early hours of the morning, sometimes sleeping over in the specially prepared bedroom that he had in the lab.
Mendez was a medium build gentleman with an eastern European accent; he had white wispy hair, and a goatee beard to match. He was extremely short-sighted and used round framed spectacles to correct his poor vision. His laboratory was ever so untidy he was always rooting around for paper work and could often be heard mumbling away to himself, constantly saying
“Now where did I put it? It was here just a minute ago.”

One particular night, Mendez was the only person in the building, or so he thought. The time must have been around 1.30 in the morning. The echoed sounds of footsteps could be heard coming up the corridor. Mendez stopped what he was doing looked up and for a second or two, concentrated on what he thought he heard, raised his eyebrows and carried on with what he was doing. The footsteps were becoming louder and louder, this time Mendez did hear them, the handle on the door of the lab moved, out of the corner of his eye, Mendez noticed it, a shadowy figure opened the door and entered the lab. Mendez squinted over his spectacles towards the door then with the forefinger of his right hand he pushed the spectacles to the top of the bridge of his nose.
“Ahh,” he said,
“It’s you, what you doing out so late, couldn’t you sleep?”
Mendez carried on with his work while the visitor began to speak.
“Do one for me,” he said.
“In fact I want this doing.” Pointing at the metal chair
. “You know I can’t do that, everything I do here is for governmental research.”
“Do it for me now!” the visitor demanded in a very hostile and aggressive way.
“You are the worlds only living Alchemist, There were only two in history ever as good as you, they were Solomon and King Midas, You can spare me a metal chair in gold,”
“No I can’t,” replied Mendez,
“This is a top secret program I am working on, I just cannot do this, not even for you, go home, go back to bed”
“Then if you cannot turn the chair into gold I will take everything you have already changed into gold.”
He pointed over to a corner where lots of objects glistened; this corner was full of golden objects.
“You can’t take them,” Mendez angrily replied.
“They belong to the government.”
“You can spare me just one.”
“No I can’t, now go away!”
“Ok, you asked for it, I do this with much regret, but I need that gold more than you could ever imagine.”
The visitor wore a long black over coat and a black trilby hat, he reached in side his black over coat and pulled out a revolver, he removed the safety catch cocked the gun, and pointed it at Mendez.
“Sorry, old man I have to do this!”
Mendez panicked and started breathing heavily a puddle of water developed beneath him,
“B, b, b, but y you d don’t understand!” Mendez attempted to say
“ ….you won’t……”
The visitor squeezed the trigger of the gun before Mendez could finish his sentence. Bang, bang, bang, three bullets entered the chest of Mendez; he slumped down by the side of a laboratory counter, blood oozing from the entry position of the bullet, more blood smeared on the wall of the counter he fell against where the exit point of the bullets formed a large hole in his back. The visitor made his way over to the corner where all the gold was stored, but before his very eyes, the shine disappeared and the gold turned to lead.
The visitor now started to panic, and had realised that he had shot Mendez for nothing,
“Maybe that’s what he was trying to say to me, before I pumped his body full of lead, oh my God, What have I done?”
The visitor noticed that there was a blue light flashing in the darkness of the laboratory. He made his way to the widow that was covered by a vertical blind, he pulled one of the slats away with the palm of his right hand, and his worst nightmare had arrived, it was the police. Panicking, he tried to find an escape route, Maybe there was a back door to the lab, he was wasting his time, the old man had never been conscious of health and safety guidelines and had the emergency fire exit bordered up years ago.

He heard voices and footsteps hurrying up the corridor, he pulled out his gun from his over coat and checked the gun’s chamber to find that he had no bullets left, he threw the gun down on the floor, as he did this five policemen barged into the lab through the already opened door. The visitor resigning himself to being caught placed his hands into the air as a final act of submission. The burlier of the policemen approached the visitor with extreme care, whilst another policeman radioed for an ambulance. The burly policeman forced the visitor to turn around and place his hands behind his back and proceeded to place the visitor in handcuffs, at the same time he reminded the visitor of his rights and that he was under arrest for the murder of Dr. Peter Mendez. He then escorted the visitor out of the lab flanked by two other police officers.

Outside there were three police cars and an ambulance waiting with blue lights flashing illuminating the moonless sky, and more surprising was the amount of people that were looking at the visitor while the police officers bundled him into the squad car like a butcher would to a carcass of beef. The car pulled away blue light flashing and siren playing.

Back at the Police Station, the visitor gave up his long coat and hat as well as all of his possessions, for safe keeping. The desk sergeant, read the visitor his rights and asked the visitor,
“Do you wish to make a phone call to your brief or anyone else?”
“No,” replied the visitor, very calmly.
Another Policeman came to the desk and asked the desk Sergeant,
“Have you finished with him yet Sarge?”
“Yes” replied the Sergeant, “you can take him to his cell now.”
“Ok, you, its not the Ritz, but it will be good enough for you,” the policeman joked. The handcuffs were removed and into the cell the visitor was put. He rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been, sat down and placed his elbows on his knees looked at the palms of his hands and put his head face downwards into the palms of his hands.

The following morning, a large knock woke the visitor up, the small hatch in the door was opened, and the hatch was just big enough to pass through a small tray with some cereal and juice on it. The Police officer passing the breakfast said,
“You are very lucky; we have managed to get a court hearing for you today, so you should be in prison by tonight, with a bit of luck”
The visitor grunted and ate his breakfast.
Not long after the visitor had finished his breakfast, a jangle of keys could be heard outside of the cell the visitor was in, the door opened and the police officer entering the cell said
“Step back arms out in front of you officer entering the cell.”
The visitor did as he was requested to do; he was led out of the police station and was escorted onto a large van with cells inside.
“Are we going to the Court?” asked the visitor,
“We sure are.” answered the escorting officer.

They arrived outside the steps of the courthouse, the visitor, was escorted off the van to a frenzy of reporters and photographers,
“Sir, sir…did you really mean to kill Dr. Mendez?….are you working for the government too?…..what was Dr. Mendez doing alone in his lab?”
The visitor ignored the questions and carried on walking to the constant flashes from the cameras.
In the relative silence of the court house the visitor was lead to the dock of court 16, there were many people in the court room already all heads turned and stared at the visitor as he entered the room.

A few moments passed when….
“All rise for the presiding Judge” a voice said, the Judge entered the room he looked old enough to have been drawing his pension for the last 20 years. The Judge sat down and all those in the court followed suit. The Judge turned to the visitor and said, “Now young man, you have been charged with the murder of Dr Peter Mendez, how do you plead, Guilty or not guilty?”
The visitor quietly said “guilty your honour.”
The judge cupped his right hand to his right ear and said
“Speak up young man I am hard of hearing these days you know,
“Guilty your honour!” the visitor shouted.
The crowd gasped, they thought that they were in for a long time.


“Ok,” said the judge, “in that case. I find your actions most distasteful, to kill a man in cold blood, not happy shooting him once, but three times in the chest and there appeared to be no motive for the crime whatsoever. I hereby sentence you to life in prison, where you will not be eligible for parole, where life means life, you will spend the rest of your natural life behind bars, take this monster away.”

The judge bangs down his gavel and declares
“Court dismissed.”



The visitor had been in jail for 5 long years when he had a real urge to do something a little different. Another inmate had made a knife out of a piece of mirror and had handed it to the visitor, on handing it to him he said
“This better be worth it.”
“Oh believe me it will be worth it, just you wait and see.”

From his prison cell, the visitor noted the sole guard on duty this particular night had been going to the toilet a little too often, the visitor was wondering why, maybe it was just an infection or had this man been drinking. The visitor called the jailer over and spent a couple of minutes, and just talked about the up and coming FA Cup Final that was to take place at the weekend. The jailer’s breath stank of alcohol. This gave the visitor an idea. Knowing that the jailer was slightly intoxicated, his faculties would be slightly impaired. So he waited for an opportunity, which in fact did not take long to bear fruit. There was a noise that appeared to be coming from another spur on the wing, the jailer jumped up; the visitor said
“He’s there!”
“Who’s there?” replied the Jailer,
“Come over here and you can see him,” said the visitor,
“It’s the governor!” he exclaimed.
The jailer went over to the visitor’s cell and made a fatal error, he turned his back on a prisoner. The visitor reached out from the bars of the cell and grabbed hold of the jailer by the throat and dragged him closer to the bars of the cell. The visitor thrust the makeshift knife into the back of the jailer and twisted it upon entry. Still holding onto the jailer by his throat, the visitor reached inside the jailer’s coat and pulled out the cell keys, he let the body of the jailer go; it just slumped onto the now bloodstained floor. The visitor said, sarcastically to the Jailer’s dead body,
“Oh dear you will get the sack for sleeping on duty, how terrible, Ha ha.”
The visitor opened the cell and headed for freedom as fast as his legs could run.

Years have passed by and the visitor is still on the run, an outlaw of the country, he has made himself a small underground hideout, which has been his home for a while, he hunts small animals, such as rats and will eat bugs to stay alive, he even drinks blood and urine, if he is really lucky he can use stream water. He cannot travel far these days as his feet are very sore and he is suffering from arthritis. He has grown a whit beard his hair extremely long. He just waits in his small hole he calls home, waiting for some one to pass by; it may be that he is waiting for his next victim, most of all he is waiting for an unsuspecting person, could that person be you? The visitor, how come I know so much about him? I hear you say. Well that’s an easy question to answer. I am the visitor. Yes it’s me, Mr Peter Mendez jnr, Dr. Mendez’ son.