The Interview

“Come in,” called the professor. He filed away the last candidate’s paperwork and yawned, taking a sip of coffee. Only 537 left to go.

A tall young man in a navy suit strolled in with a wide smile stretched across his face. His shiny brown hair was dabbed with pomade and swept neatly to one side like he was from some 90s boyband.

“Take a seat,” the professor gestured. The young man nodded in thanks and sat on the couch opposite. He leaned back and surveyed the room.

“Skeet Johnson?”

“That is my name.” The seventeen-year-old spoke with a quiet confidence. There was no trace of anxiety in his voice. “And you must be professor Harvey Pearce?”

“Yes, yes I am. Very pleased to meet you.” He chuckled heartily. There were always a few keen candidates every year who could recognise their interviewers by face, but it was still a pleasant surprise.

“Now Skeet, why do you want to study at our medical school?”

“I was always interested in the human body. I collected textbooks and made anatomy models as a child, and as I grew older, I was constantly inspired by the works of the great medical and scientific practitioners I studied. Watson and Crick’s work on the structure of DNA, Darwin’s Origin of Species, Barnard’s account on the first ever cardiac transplant.

“Of course, these are just the classics – I’d read all their works by the age of ten.”

“Impressive" Pearce nodded. "Tell me, what do you read now?”

“At the moment I’m doing research into a wide range of areas. For example, computational chemistry for drug development and potential treatments for cranial neuropathy. I’ve read yours and your partner’s research on the immunological privilege of the brain, some fascinating ideas you present in that. I must say I’ve become quite a fan. And where better to continue all this than here, an educational institution of such merit, the most prestigious place to study medicine in the world?”

“You do all this in your spare time, outside of the school?”

The boy nodded. His green eyes flashed with a wild passion. Pearce looked down properly at Skeet Johnson’s paperwork – this kid had full scores on all his admissions exams. 100% - a unique score out of thousands of candidates not only in the current year, but perhaps a previous decade. Admission here was the most competitive in the world, but Skeet Johnson was positively beyond it.

Pearce shook his head. Back in his day, seventeen year olds were graffitiing on walls and scratching their ex-lovers’ cars with alcopop bottle caps.

He took out a notepad and handed the boy a pen.

“Drug development huh,” Pearce smiled. “Tell me Skeet, what is Paclitaxel used to treat?”

“Most commonly ovarian and breast cancer.” His reply came without hesitation.

“How would you treat spontaneous pneumothorax?”

“Puncture a hole in the thorax to decrease the air pressure inside, then do CPR.”

“Suggest a suitable lead to synthesise Indynaprost.”

“Cyclopentadiene.”

“Describe how you would perform a prefrontal lobotomy.”

“You don’t.”

Pearce chuckled as he flashed the boy a smile of admiration. What had the medical profession done to deserve this rare prodigy? He leaned forward.

“Suggest how you would heal scarred nerve tissue if it were, say, damaged in an operation.”

Skeet paused for a moment, then started to laugh.

“That’s your job to find out, professor! I wouldn’t want to spoil the mystery for you,” he joked.

“You really have read all my papers, haven’t you?”

“How could I resist? You’re one of the best neuroscientists in the world. In fact, I’ve read all the papers authored by the professors here. By the way, I saw that you were conducting a secret research experiment a few years ago. I thought that sounded incredibly exciting – how is it going?”

“Ah yes. The mystery-shrouded secret project of my heyday. It was abandoned.”

“Oh,” the boy looked disappointed. “How comes? Ethical objections?”

Pearce smiled, beginning to wonder whose interview this was.

“Alright, since you're so interested, I'll tell you about it. My fellow researcher Jeremy Mansfield went missing about ten years ago. It was just the two of us working on it. Two flamboyant young academics with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. I dare say we were on the edge of a revolutionary breakthrough that would change the future of neurosurgery, but his tragic disappearance left me unable to continue on my own.”

The professor ran his fingers through his grey hair, temporarily lost in memories of his youth.

“We both worked on it, but he was the one that discovered the critical missing piece. He was in Italy when he called me, and he sounded so excited to come back and finish it together. The next day he was gone. I still wonder where he is today. There are many things I never had the chance to tell him.”

“Wow, that’s crazy, I’m sorry about that.” The boy shook his head in sympathy. They both sat in silent thought for a while. “This breakthrough you talk about - something to do with scarred nerve tissue?”

“Indeed that was the missing puzzle piece. The issue of healing scarred nerve tissue was the key to success in our experiment, and Jeremy seemed convinced he’d worked out how to do it. He was a very smart man, a legendary prodigy of the age I suppose.”

“So were you, professor. Don’t downplay your own work, it’s some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you,” smiled Pearce.

“Seems as if you were pretty tight with your colleague. Would you want to say anything to him in particular if you met him again?”

Pearce glanced up at the clock in thought for a moment.

“Obviously, I’d ask him where he went,” he laughed, “I’d want to know what he found out in Italy. Maybe how he discovered it. Perhaps also… whether he ever thought I was a burden on him.”

The boy shook his head. “Don’t worry about it professor.”

“Well, those times have passed. I’m pretty happy in full-time teaching now instead of chasing dreams and discoveries like all you young’uns.”

“Never too old to dream.” The boy’s youthfully innocent smile was comforting. Pearce suddenly looked at him with curiosity.

“Aren’t you interested in what our mystery project was about?”

“Of course I am. But it wouldn’t be much of a mystery project if you told me. Anyway, from the clues you’ve given me I can guess it was a little ethically ambiguous.”

They laughed, two men of science on the same wavelength.

“You’re a sharp kid. I’ve seen a few like you in my career. Remember, persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. You’ll achieve great things.” The professor patted him on the shoulder.

They stood up and shook hands.

“You’ve never been to Italy, have you professor?” Pearce stopped. He remembered being asked the same question a long time ago.

“No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

“You should go. The pizza’s good.”

Pearce chuckled as the boy put on his coat.

“Nice talking to you today. I’ll expect to see you soon, Skeet.”

“Always a pleasure seeing you again professor.”

The young man strolled out of the interview room and down the university hallway, long black overcoat flying as the next interviewee entered nervously behind him.