Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930Pelcher, Anthony
Science
Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930
Pelcher, Anthony
Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
"So there stood my poor old body. Ready for the experiment to bring it
back to life. And as my new self floated around above the scientist and
his helper I smiled to myself, for I was sure the experiment would prove
a failure, even though I now knew that the sheriff's haste had kept him
from placing the rope right at my throat and had saved me a broken neck.
I was dead. All that was left of me now was my spirit, or soul. And that
was swimming and floating about above their heads with not an
inclination in the world to have a thing to do with the husk of the man
I could clearly see through the glass of the bell.
* * * * *
"They turned on a huge battery of ultra-violet rays then," continued the
hollow droning of the man who had been hanged, "which, as the scientist
had explained to me while in prison, acting upon the contents of the
syringes, by that time scattered through my whole body, was to renew the
spark of life within the dead thing hanging there. Through a tube, and
by means of a valve entering the glass vase in the top, the scientist
then admitted a dense white gas. So thick was it that in a moment or two
my body's transparent coffin appeared to be full of a liquid as white as
milk. Electricity then revolved my cage around so that my body was
insured a complete and even exposure to the rays of the green and violet
lamps. And while all this silly stuff was going on, around and around
the laboratory I floated, confident of the complete failure of the whole
thing, yet determined to see it through if for no other reason than to
see the discomfiture and disappointment that this mere man was bound to
experience. You see, I was already looking back upon earthly mortals as
being inferior, and now as I waited for this proof I was all the while
fighting off a new urge to be going elsewhere. Something was calling me,
beckoning me to be coming into the full spirit world. But I wanted to
see this wise earth guy fail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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