Page 22 - Unlikely Stories 1

Madagascar Madness

Seidell shook his head, smiling. “I’ve seen the Lone Ranger
and Flash Gordon serials. Was it like those, but no talking?”
“I can’t say,” replied the old man. “But it probably doesn’t
matter. The point is that one of the plot elements involved
Madagascar.”
The G.I.’s eyes widened.
“It was filmed on location here? In 1918?”
“No, of course not! An exotic locale was simply needed to
give a name and an origin to a terrible affliction striking down
characters in the drama: the Madagascar Madness.”
Seidell anxiously consulted his handbook again. “No, I don’t
see anything like that listed here. Is it an infectious disease I should
know about?”
“It is pure fiction!” Weiss struggled to control himself. “A
poison gas rendering its victims insane until the antidote is
discovered and administered to the heroine’s father in the final
chapter.”
“Oh.”
“But day after day, shooting those fifteen chapters, my
curiosity was aroused about Madagascar, indeed a remote and
mysterious island on the other side of the earth. It stayed with me,
and when, a few years later, I sought a land where I could become
anonymous, far away from the bright lights, ballyhoo and endless
promotions of the modern world, it naturally came into my mind.”
“I certainly never heard of it before I got here.” Seidell
glanced at his watch. “It does seem odd that a man with such fame
and success would throw it all away to live as a hermit in the tropics.”
“I appreciate your skepticism, young man,” said Weiss. “My
motivation was twofold. First, as I said, to make a complete and utter
break with my life in America, my career and my marriage. Many of
my feats of strength and endurance, as well as my ability to conceal
small objects inside my body, were the result of careful study of
Eastern disciplines, many not well understood in the West. But all of
them—East Indian, Chinese or Japanese—link superior physical
attainments to psychological or spiritual development. Yogis are seen

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