Many years after Dr. Ricardo Sztein had passed away, the following letter was found tucked away through a rip in the underbelly of the mattress of his room. We don’t know when he wrote the letter since it wasn’t dated. Poor Ricardo, a good man, tormented, who craved to be understood.

Dear Lillian,

            How I wish you were here. You can’t imagine the troubles I’ve had. Maybe that’s best, may you rest in peace. I am old now, bent, tired, discouraged. Do you remember when I was young, when we were both young, the dreams we had, the enthusiasm? You were never as optimistic as I was, but that’s only because you had the good sense to understand that few people really cares about what happens to others. 

            I’ll tell you what happened: everything and nothing. Remember how I loved to work with Benjamin. How I loved him. He was so much more down to earth than me. Well, after you died I discovered that jellyfish have eyes – can you imagine that! Benjamin and I went to study jellyfish eyes in La Parguera, Puerto Rico. What a break from the drudgery of being a government employee. As you know, it drove me crazy to spend so much valuable time justifying the absurdly obvious to people who really didn’t care about much more than enforcing the endless list of rules. The bureaucrats even wanted to administer creativity. Also, they never trusted me and continually asked me to prove my innocence, even though I don’t think that I ever did anything wrong. It was as if I was guilty until proven innocent. What happened to our judicial system of being innocent until proven guilty?

            But it’s the jellyfish, Lillian, which led to my troubles. When I saw those remarkable creatures in their natural habitat, swimming freely in the mangrove swamp, I felt that studying them was the real me. Well, if that’s true, I committed suicide of sorts by being me. I have lost my optimism; the end is in sight. It doesn’t really matter since I am old. As you know, Lillian, I don’t believe in the afterlife, or in God, but I hope I’m wrong and will see you again.

            I wish you could have been with me the night that I entered the mind of a jellyfish for a few brief minutes. I experienced what no person ever did before. Jellyfish live in such a mysterious world. I am convinced that they think and feel and communicate with each other. They have brains, Lillian, a kind that we don’t understand. Jellyfish have no need for us. It’s only we that can learn from them. They are a triumph of evolution. Jellyfish have survived so much longer than we have. What resiliency! It has been a privilege to study them, even a little bit, even if it destroyed me. I learned that it’s impossible to trespass into the niche of another species, no matter how tempting it is. We are who we are.

At first, I did not believe that I was in serious trouble, but in retrospect I see that I had no chance. Society – the Relevancers as Sophia called them – were dead set to do away with me; I was their prey. I do not understand how the Relevancers became so influential. They seem to say all the s politically correct things, always acceptable, yet they did me in. I’m sorry, Lillian, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. In any case I am too bitter to be objective. I can’t figure out whether the Relevancers command such authority with the approval, ignorance or indifference of society. I am afraid that it is indifference, probably the most dangerous situation.

I may be wrong, but the more the Relevancers squeezed me, the more I suspected that they feared me. They didn’t say so, of course, but I felt it. I never told anyone about that feeling, not even Benjamin. You’re the first, and the most important. The Relevancers kept bringing up my independence. They thought that I did whatever I wanted to. Maybe that was what they feared, or envied. I think that they mixed up independence with imagination.    

I’m so confused, Lillian. Did I really murder anyone? Who? Do scientists always have to be dispassionate and practical to pay their way? Is science really that much different from art? How? I have so many questions, the kind that you always tolerated when I brought them up, but never took too seriously. You should have taken them seriously, Lillian, very seriously indeed. It turns out that how people think about things may be even more important than what they actually do.

            I love you, Lillian. Please wait for me. I’m on my way very soon.

                                                                         Your faithful husband,

                                                                         Ricardo