The Prize

The Prize by Samuel Ramratan.

Science has been my life for sixty years. It has
The Prizetaken up more of my life than my three wives, my
numerous dogs, countless research assistants, and
endless experiments. It wasn't my idea to get into
physics in the first place, it was mothers. I still
remember that autumn day after many bouts of
drunkenness, consoling myself on the meager life as
a science teacher when my mother suggested going to
graduate school.

She had painted a picture so wonderful that I hadn't
any need to get drunk for a few weeks. I never knew
much about the circle of friends she and my dad kept.
I didn't know anything they knew. For all it is
worth those days, I was ignorant to the ways of the
mature adult world. A world which turned out to be
full of horrors including broken marriages,
ungrateful dogs, meddling assistants and failed
experiments. The only thing which had stuck in my
head was her telling me about the prize money which
was given every year to those who had excelled in
science.

Sometimes one word can put a man's life so much
off course that he loses himself. For me that one
word was called excelling. In the old days they had
a phrase for that syndrome called wine, women and
song. I have had all three in varying amounts but
the song which has evaded me the most was the
singeing cries of excellence.

By starting my career under a man the whole world
respected someone who had already claimed the prize
money, I had felt entitled. He always had a smile
for me, notation for my notes, advice on women and
caution for my chosen graduate experiment. Back in
those days I was trying to find the compression
relationships atoms underwent when accelerated to
high speeds. The final result was supposed to mirror
what occur ed at relativistic speeds namely
approaching the natural speed of light.

He was an experimentalist and my thesis was supposed
to constitute a single marriage between theoretical
work and experimentation. I don't know why I am
recounting these initial episodes of my life because
my experimental part failed miserably. There was no
experiment available to back my claims. Even today
those damn high-brow experimentalists cannot
accelerate whole atoms, much less measure what is
occurring inside an accelerating one. I should have
taken his advice, that damn old coot, when he had
told me to find an easier experiment. The committee
did however award me my doctorate, but I had failed
the prize money and had had to settle for an average
salary as assistant professor in a relatively
unknown university.

There I had married my first research assistant only
to lose her to some kook who after his graduate
studies moved up to a recognized institution. I
didn't regret losing her because she was one of the
first females whom I had encountered in physics and
being enthralled by her ambitions but not by her
female qualities, my love for her subsided quickly.

After, my thoughts of her arrived more as a masculine
type figure and they even multiplied when seeing
her boss participants around the next time at a
conference their university was holding. Everyone
was doing something then except me. Those days I was
trying to coax spectral lines out of atoms by
selective heat radiation. Problem was my equipment
always broke down and the resolution of its heating
apparatus was insufficiently adequate. I could not
match theory with experiment. They all laughed when
I said that.

However one good thing which arose from all those
failures was I learned how to write. Finding all
sorts of words which would hide my lack of
excellence was difficult. Coining new phrases and
searching for reasons why my experiments bombed had
become my forte. Turning into the bad workman who
always blamed his tools became easy.

By the time my arrival at an average university
was welcomed I had remarried and was supporting
three large black dogs. It is not that I dislike
dogs, I tried hard to get along with them but they
always showed a preference for my wife seeing she
never worked, being with them at all times. When
my current experiment at that time failed, no one
at the university blamed me. Perhaps it was because
one day I had gone home early and found her with her
legs in a position she had never shown me straddled
by some unknown variable grunting over her. His
color was not important, but his position above me
still haunts to this day.

Funny thing was, I was working on heavy metals at
that time and was sure I could have solved the
precession problem which still haunts current
experimental scientists to this day. Heavy metals
annoy me to no end even showing up as a distaste
for metal bands. So much for real song and dance!

It took me many many years to trust women again,
and even so I still view most women with distrust.
Dogs are almost a taboo in my small circle of
friends. Their wagging tails seem to tell me a
different story.

Yesterday after retiring from the university without
the prize money, getting only a small pension but a
wonderful going away party, I felt like they were
glad to see the last of me. The Dean, a woman,
wished me luck and congratulated me on my life's
achievements which were next to nothing. She had said
I had excelled during my stay there. That had
brought tears to my eyes for the first time in my
life. They were tears of sadness.

I had felt lonely at the function looking back at
my past. My third wife, she wasn't there because
she had died almost three years ago. The coroner had
said, and I quote, a combination of heart failure
and stress. I had hung on looking for prize money
for too long, in search of that elusive Excellence
and life had passed me by.

I don't even know how to smile properly. I have no
children from any of my marriages and no doggone
best friend. Last week I was mugged outside my home
and even the mugger seemed kinder to me than the
years which have passed me by. He had left me my
wallet with the few momentos inside at my bidding.

These memories surfaced today while I was throwing
out all my notes preparing that grand bonfire in my
backyard. I wish I had never heard of that prize.