THE HAPPY SAD MAN

The white curtain seemed dark now. His eyes hurting, brain exploding, and he had a blinding headache. But yet he was smiling and his beautiful wife, Jen, whom he had married 10 years ago. She had tears in her eyes and was repeatedly asking him to stay with her. But now how could he, the central nervous system, had failed,  he could feel his permanently impaired senses. He had a slurred speech, was hallucinating. But he got a gist of what his wife had come there to convey. She Was incredibly guilty that she had driven him to this. It was all her premeditated plan to divorce him and be with her friend, Dr. Margot. He closed his eyes and big and thinking about the night everything changed.

 The preparations were elaborate song---the aroma of the food, the taste of the wine, the fairy lights; everything was perfect. Dr. Ashton, along with his wife, Mrs. Jen, was attending the inauguration of the new hospital of Jen's friend Dr. Margot. Dr Margot was a high-profile surgeon of the city,  known for his miraculous hands in the matter of the heart. He was a cardiac surgeon with an extremely busy schedule. Dr. Margot and Jen had met during the ongoing treatment of Jen's mother under Dr. Margot. Since then, they had been excellent friends.

The wine, the food, and the gossip were flowing freely. Suddenly Jen heard a glass crack from a corner. Heads turned, Jen also saw it was Dr. Ashton again in one of his fits of uncontrollable rage. He had fought with the host of the party itself, Dr. Margot. Jen rushed to the corner and shushed her husband and apologized to her dear friend for his misbehavior.

As soon as they reached home, Jen confronted Ashton about the incident. She explained how embarrassing it was for her to get insulted like this due to his demeanor and his inability to control his anger. In his defense, Aston told her that she knew about his IED ( Intermittent Explosive Disorder) before marrying him or rather even before that when they were in a relationship. He had this issue due to a troubled past with his parents. At the time of the wedding, Jen had agreed to cope with his illness, but now she was nonsupportive. Jen was frustrated by this endless and pointless argument and left the house soon with a few of her belongings, supposedly to clear her head. His IED  had got the best of him during the past few years, he didn't know why. But today he could see his world getting torn apart due to the lack of this one little hormone in his endocrine system.

So he decided to use expertise as a biochemist to solve this issue and started working in his laboratory assigned to him personally at the famous biochemical research institute he worked at. He knew drugs like LSD and Ecstasy that could boost serotonin levels in a vast amount, but he didn't want to resort to them. He had already tried all the prescribable medications. Nothing worked on him due to the deficient serotonin level. He modified the synthetic structure of LSD, went against his conscience, prepared the right amount of synthetic serotonin dose for himself, and consumed it orally instead of intravenously to have immediate effects on his body. But there was no end to his misery, his intestine suffered fatal burns due to consuming the hormone in such a raw form. He lay on the floor of his house for two full days, in extreme pain physically, and anguish mentally. Finally, his neighbor noticed that he hadn't heard any voice from the house for a long time, so he knocked on the main door. Dr. Ashton somehow managed to slither on the floor to answer the door in a semi-conscious state and unlocked the door. His neighbor immediately took him to a hospital and tried contacting Jen multiple times, but she was completely unavailable. Dr. Ashton got well in a few days and was discharged after the toxic drug solution was excreted from his body.

He was hurt that he still had not heard from Jen yet. He researched voraciously this time and figured out that the Monoamine Oxidase solution can also be prospective. He prepared it synthetically and consumed it as well. He faced specific issues like extreme body heat and slight tremors, but rest was all fine. He kept on experimenting with his body, without any further medical intervention. He concluded that the MAOa gene is a repressor for the gene that produces serotonin. He had to stop these repressors so that the serotonin releasing gene can be expressed efficiently. He prepared a molecule, which he called Serophile, which had an affinity for the MAOa gene repressor so that serotonin can be released in large amounts. He injected Serophile into his veins and waited for its magic to happen. He faced no side-effects, too, as he had been cautious in taming those also this time. He was inexplicably amiable, happy, and utterly devoid of any form of anger for five full days. He decided the time has come to bring back Jen, the love of his life into his new world.

Ashton knew Jen must have gone to Margot's place to vent out her anger as they were close. He planned to go the next morning. He tried reaching Jen through her cell but all he heard was the call inadvertently reaching to voice mail. He pulled through the night dreaming about the next day. The sun was shining bright the following day, Ashton opened his eyes and happily prepared to get going. But he couldn't move his leg muscles, they were listless as if paralyzed. He tried moving his hands. Luckily, his left hand was working, he called the emergency at the hospital. Ashton was rushed to the trauma center immediately as he was bleeding internally, and his organs would collapse in no time. He has suffered damage to all his vital systems, his kidneys, liver, and whatnot. He had also left a voice mail to Jen this morning asking her to come to the hospital as he had a hunch that something terrible might happen to him. 

Jen heard the voice mail first thing in the morning and reached the hospital in a hurry. She was accompanied by Margot as well. The doctors told her that the prognosis seems to be taking turns for worse for Ashton's case. She went in to meet him along with Margot and revealed to him that the fight at the party, the argument and her leaving was all a sham to get him to divorce her. She was crying inconsolably, but now what can be done. The doctors intervened between their sentimental situation to inform that Ashton's body was progressing rapidly towards multiple organ failure, they had to move him to life support immediately. Margot carried Jen away, who was wailing inconsolably. She pushed him back and ran off from the hospital in pain.

Jen reached her home and saw the empty house and the walls surrounding her with photos of them as a loving couple. She couldn't imagine she single-handedly had finished the entire relationship in a jiffy, for temporary pleasure and satisfaction. She rushed to her bedroom and fumbled through her bedside drawer to get hold of her sleeping pills and commit suicide. She ingested the entire bottle at once so that her miserable guilty soul can be put out of this world once and for all. She collapsed on the floor and went to sleep for an internity.

Meanwhile, in the hospital, the doctors were trying their best to stabilize Ashton's reacting body on life support. Margot had followed Jen to her home only to find her almost dead in grief and guilt. He immediately rushed her to the same hospital. Jen's pulse was feeble. She was admitted to the room next to Ashton only in the emergency ward. Ashton was told that Jen tried committing suicide, and she was also critical. This tragic news triggered something in Ashton, he was so overwhelmed with grief and anger that the repressors he had shut down kicked in this dire situation. His condition began stabilizing, the doctors called this a miracle of true love. Dr. Margot also witnessed everything and felt guilty for his actions and left their life for good. As for Jen, the doctors were successful in reversing the effect of the overdose of the sleeping pills, and she was also out of danger. Her near-death experience taught her to never go down that track.

Dr. Ashton recovered in a few weeks and was discharged to live a long and happy life with his wife and true love, Jen. As for his IED, Serophile had done its trick, and now he was a happy and healthy person. Along with this, he had given this world, and people like him with anger issues a new ray of hope by discovering Serophile. He won many accolades for his research and was even nominated for the Nobel prize in chemistry. Jen stood by him in thick and thin, and they lived together until "natural" death parted them.