Amphipathic

It was the seventh spring of the seventh year after I met you, the time it all started. My world was rocked to its foundations. I wonder if my voice can still reach out to you beyond the fields of infinity, whoever you are and wherever you may be. I have no memory of you, but if I find you again, I might find myself…

***

It was a little isolated village in the middle of nowhere, a little town characterised by its deep pink Asiatic lilies blooming by the river. I was now Yuriko of the valley of lilies. I lived with my older brother Koichi in a little country house. There was seemingly nothing atypical in our house save a peculiar scroll on the wall. It was a small idyllic village. Life passed us by as an errant brushstroke in an endless veil of time. All my other memories were just a vacant blur in the distance. The children played by the river landing little bruises and scratches. Our neighbours Midori and Momo smiled and blushed at my brother in passing as they always did. An orange hue bathing the scenery at dusk and dawn during a play of shadows and lighting. Days were a storm of sound and silence. The charm of this little village was somehow beguiling, transcending and most unique.

Midori often cracked a forced smile when she saw me. She often mocked my necklace shaped like a tetracyclic sterane ring claiming to have never seen such a peculiar design before. I still wore it every single day nonetheless. Brother was tall and slim with dark hair and soft but deep voice. He was always kind to me, and we headed out together to the centre of the village every day. People would whisper and gossip that we did seem very close. Little did they know that a double bond may be either cis or trans. To them my thoughts may have seemed strange, but after all, to me the market place we visited seemed just like the scene from some fabled painting from a long forgotten time of yore.

Behind the scroll on the wall of our house was a smaller opening to a confined space which led to the basement where I sketched structures endlessly in my notebook. Phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon were my building blocks. The bisphosphonate group and pyrophosphate across the sketch book looked structurally similar. There were also scribbles in chalk on a smaller black board, this time of apolipoprotein L and schizophrenia genetic loci. Drawings of the tertiary structure of certain proteins were also pinned up against the wall. The other villagers knew not of the artistic alchemy and storms of speculation that took place in our little basement. If they did find out they would not have comprehended my predicament anyway. Brother was caring and spoke little about my "hobbies" to the others, but there were times he seemed to sense something was amiss.

After all, this was not my real place, not my true home. I am errant spirit indefatigably fading in and fading out from one reality to the next, caught in the interlude. There were no discriminating predictors of where I would end up next. It was open… There was a plethora of possibility. Just like remains that wash away on the shore were from many years ago, I too did not belong in this time and place. My peculiar skill, my peculiar aptitude, namely the concoction of chemicals on the seventh spring of the seventh year after I met you became my curse. From my old world of molecular characterisations and bioinformatics, to this simple country life.

There was thunder and lightning this dark night. I did not find it disconcerting at all. I found it very peaceful and befitting. Other nights I often hear the soundless voice of a mindless silent scream. That was no ordinary song. That was pure madness. Pure unadulterated haunting madness in a silent scream of unintelligible words. May that sound break through the boundaries of time and place, may that sound divide, conquer and reach you once again at the limits of Bermuda.

The passion to find my regression coefficient that could take me back, burnt strong within me every day… a never fading feeling, like an immortal HeLa cell line.

***

The author’s doctoral research was partially funded through the Endeavour Scholarship Scheme.