The Amazed Chemist

and the

Molecular World

The Quaint Cabin

Source - Max Pixel

Author’s Note: This story is based on the stories The King of the Ants and The Little Hunting Dog, which are stories from the Chinese Fairy Tale unit. Both of the stories mentioned above characterize ant-sized knights fighting a battle. The knights are armed with swords, hunting dogs, and hunting falcons. In both stories the individual observing the battle is a scholar who for one reason or another needed to escape from society. To do so, the scholar would travel to a remote village and stay in an old cabin. I, instead, chose to provide more detail and denote the individual as a chemist studying the molecular aspects of the world, but kept the same reason for leaving the city and the small cabin the same. Additionally, in the original stories, the scholar (the chemist) has had much more contact with either the king, a knight, or a dog. Instead of focusing on this, I wanted to just have the chemist observe the situation and then leave a suspense for furthering his research at the end. I wanted to focus on the peculiar situation and how the chemist would react to it. I wanted the chemist to appear shocked but so amazed that he cannot turn his attention away from the situation.

Bibliography:

  • The King of the Ants, The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).
  • The Little Hunting Dog, The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).

The Amazed Chemist and the Molecular World

There was once a world-renowned chemist who was studying the most molecular aspects of the world in which we live. For several months the chemist’s research and experiments continued to fail. Just as he was about to give up, he decided to try just one more thing. Seclusion. The chemist decided he needed to clear his mind. He needed to escape society.

For hours he traveled until he came upon a small, remote town shrouded by tall mountains and vast forests. He decided that this was the spot. He found a small cabin to stay in. It was only one room and had a quaint and homey-feel with a warm fireplace in the corner. The chemist only had one complaint: there were several gnats and fleas around the cabin. He just attributed this to the cabin’s old age. As he was trying to fall asleep one night, he heard a peculiar sound at the door. He crept ever so slowly towards to door…

At once, hundreds of tiny knights burst through the crack of the door. Some knights were riding horses the size of a cricket while other followed along on foot wielding swords and bows and arrows. There were also hunting dogs and falcons the size of a small ant. The chemist was dumbfounded. He thought to himself, “How is it possible that these people are so microscopically small?” He continued to watch in amazement as the knights unleashed their dogs and prepared for battle. At once the hunting dogs began to devour the fleas and the falcons destroyed the gnats. The knights took care of anything else that remained. The battle raged for hours, and the chemist—still standing in his original position—continued to watch and study every aspect of the microscopic battle. After all of the gnats and fleas were conquered, they began to rest.

All of the sudden, the chemist heard the sound of trumpets and the stomps of a thousand men. A long processional consisting of hundreds of mounted and armed knights began entering the room. In the middle of the processional was an extravagant carriage painted in beautiful crimson being pulled by four powerful, cream-colored stallions. All of the battle-worn knights quickly stood at attention. The processional slowly came to a stop and out of the extravagant carriage came the king dressed in crimson and cream. The king then ordered for a feast to be prepared to celebrate the successful battle. His voice as powerful as any normal human. The king and his men ate and talked for hours until it was time to go. At his command, the knights began to gather all of their possessions and fell into line in the processional. Just as they had entered, the processional marched out of the cabin. It was as if they had never been there.

The chemist was still in awe. He couldn’t comprehend what he had just seen. He shook his head as if to wake himself up, but he realized this was no dream. The next day, the owner of the cabin asked the chemist how his night was. The chemist then proceeded to tell the cabin’s owner exactly what he saw. The owner seemed shocked that the chemist had never heard about this strange phenomenon before. The owner said, “That’s not abnormal! That happens every night. You just get used to it.” As the chemist walked away from the conversation and headed back towards his cabin he realized, “This is where my research begins.”