Dr. Dume ~ The Doctor is In

Canada has a new serial killer (time to die, eh?).

Robert Pickton stands accused of the murder and expert butchery of 26 women. He claims to have killed 49, and wanted one more to make a neat round number before he was arrested.

Oh, we all say that. 30 is a neat round number, but then nobody arrests you, so you do one more and then you have to get to 40. Still no arrest, so you're on your way to 50.

Nobody wants to be arrested on an untidy number. Bad luck, Bob. Perhaps you should have given yourself up at 10. Or maybe you should have been more careful.

It seems his freezer contained two heads, sawn in half vertically and the brains removed. Can't say I care for brains myself. Too much fat. Texture like scrambled eggs but no real taste. And no, it doesn't make you smarter. That should be obvious, since if you're eating someone's brains then they can't have been smarter than you - or they'd be eating yours. So there won't be any improvement.

I wonder what he did with them, and with all the others? Perhaps he had them with fava beans and a nice chianti, eh?

Posted by Dr. Dume at 01:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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 I think it's plain to see that my muse isn't exactly a 'people person'. However, he does come up with the occasional good idea. He comes up with bad ones too, and I write them anyway, because he can get a bit stroppy if I don't.

This is a good one though. It concerns a recent discussion I had with a friend of mine on the nature of alternative realities. I was going to talk about it here, but I think I'll save it for an article.

That's what the muse suggests, and I've found it easier to agree than disagree. He can sulk to Olympic standards! 

Posted by Dr. Dume at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I rarely watch television. Reception is poor because of all the flying monkeys. I'll have to get the anti-aircraft guns working again one day.

Internet access is, of course, unaffected. So I was able to catch up with some children's programming, since Mother never allowed me to view such nonsense when I was in my larval stage.

She was right, as it turned out. If I'd been exposed to things like this I might have turned out demented, rather than the well-balanced adult my parents brought me up to be.

It's a good thing my mother was such a tough woman, even though it meant I had to run the tenderiser for three days before she was edible.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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The villagers occasionally have parades. They march across the swamp and right up to the castle, carrying flaming torches, brandishing farming implements and shouting a lot.

They had one last night. I watched from the high tower, as always, and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. However, it ended badly once again. The Ferals always spoil it.

I’m not sure where the Ferals came from, but they’ve been a fixture of the swamp for a long time now. Even longer than the Rarely-Glimpsed Slimy Swamp Thing. They’ve never bothered me, but then I cross the swamp quietly, and without any kind of light.

Currently, I think it most likely that the Ferals were the result of one of Great-Grandfather Dume’s experiments. According to his notebooks, he had an idea that people could be surgically manipulated in order to survive in the swamp. Gills, tails, long teeth, that sort of thing. Of course he went overboard and added claws, extra eyes, horns and so forth. Great-Grandfather Dume was known for his imagination, if not for his restraint.

Now, if his notebooks are correct—and if I’ve decoded them correctly—the earliest conversions became somewhat agitated after the surgery. He kept them caged, naturally, but unfortunately he had also enhanced their strength. Some escaped and ran off into the swamp.

Great-Grandfather attempted to recapture his subjects, but since he had made them far more suited to swamp life than he was, he simply could not find them. His notes suggest he lost contact with them, never saw them again and assumed they had died out. So he marked the experiment a failure.

His remaining subjects had become even more agitated by now, so he let them go. In those days, there were no such things as radio-collars or he could have tracked their progress. As it was, Great-Grandfather had no option but to assume his modifications had failed and his subjects had died out.

The Ferals first appeared while Grandfather Dume was in charge here. He treated them to showers of boiling lead a few times, until they learned to stay away from the castle. Nowadays they are an unusual sight, except during the villager’s parades.

It seems the Ferals don’t like loud noise and bright light. It makes them impossible to reason with. Still, it does mean I don’t have to feed them.

Pity about the parade though. I hope they have another one soon.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Once in a while I go down to the little village at the edge of the swamp. They have an ale-house—the Throat and Razor—that serves particularly good beers. It's a funny place though. Nobody speaks, even though I'm certain I hear the sounds of revelry from inside before I open the door. Also, I always seem to arrive just as most people have to be somewhere else. Well, I do get there rather late, I suppose.

Her eyes moved independently, a feature I found fascinating, as was her ability to belch the sentence “Do I know you?”

Her question, however, confused me. How did she expect me to know whether she knew me or not? I was sure I didn’t know her, but did that necessarily preclude the possibility that she knew me? I decided to play safe.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Good ‘nuff,” she said. “Whass yer name?”

Now, I have a lot of names. My father, when naming me, couldn’t make up his mind so he gave me a whole raft of names and let me choose which to use. This woman didn’t seem to be in a suitable condition to hear them all, so I just picked one.

“Phineas,” I said.

"Finearse?” She roared with laughter, which I suppose is what made her sway so much.

“Phin-e-as” I said it slowly because she clearly wasn’t listening at normal speed. At this point I began to wonder what she wanted. Usually my trips to this bar are uneventful, and the people leave me alone.

“Buy a girl a drink, Finearse?”

Aha, she wanted drink, and had no money. My red velvet drinking-jacket stood out among the brown sackcloth of the villagers, so she had gravitated towards the one who looked most likely to have spare cash. At last, a logical explanation. I glanced at her waist, which could not have been much more than twenty inches around, and wondered how she managed to fit thirty feet of intestine in there. My curiosity was aroused.

She was drinking Broken Glass, a spirit I had tried once but had been disappointed to find was purely liquid. I admit it felt like broken glass on the way out though, which is presumably where the name came from. I bought her a bottle and invited her home.

As we left, I noticed the eyes of the locals were narrower than usual, but paid them no heed. They must have very light-sensitive eyes, these villagers. Perhaps I should wear a less bright jacket on my next visit.

Back at the castle, her behaviour became somewhat bizarre. She leaned on me as though she had no legs, and kept trying to touch my mouth with hers. Most unhygienic. Still, she did remove most of her clothing herself before she passed out, which made it easier to prepare her for the laboratory. I just wished I hadn’t had to carry her up all the stairs. I should get a winch installed.

So it was a late night in the laboratory last night, but a highly informative one. Apparently it’s all in the way the small intestine is folded.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 02:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Sometimes I write, normally under the guise of fiction. Mostly I use a pen name - K. Hillman - but once in a while I use my own name.

The articles for Alienskin magazine are currently the only ones that carry my real name. All others are under my pseudonym.

I think I'll keep it that way. I don't want to be perpetually bothered by psychoanalysts looking for business.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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I was pottering about in the laboratory today, under the watchful eye of my father. Just the one, since the other is in the kitchen, in a jar of its own. So I was a little irritated when the doorbell rang, mainly because the lab is in the top room of the highest tower. It has to be there so that I don’t have to raise the table so high during thunderstorms.

Anyway, I made the long trek downstairs in no particular hurry. Usually the Scaly Swamp Thing deals with unwanted visitors before I get to the door. It’s less active in the winter, so my doorbell pealed another three or four times before I reached it.

On the doorstep was a very earnest-looking chap with a beard and entirely unsuitable sandals.

“What?” I said, because I was feeling charitable.

He held out a leaflet. “How do you feel about experiments on animals?”

I rubbed my chin. I hadn’t thought of that, and said so.

“Well, it happens all the time,” he said. “Animals are put through terrible procedures in labs all over the country.”

“Really? Where?” I was beginning to like this visitor, even though I thought it sounded like an awful waste of a good terrible procedure. Still, perhaps they were just practicing.

“All over,” he said. “I’m trying to put a stop to it.”

“Quite right.” I took his pamphlet and tossed it aside. Why would anyone waste a good experimental procedure on an animal? I smiled, but without showing my teeth this time. I didn’t want him to run like the others. “Would you like to see my laboratory?”

“You have a laboratory?” He seemed surprised. I could not see why, since from what he was telling me there were people with laboratories everywhere. He pursed his lips. “Do you experiment on animals?”

“Oh, goodness, no,” I said. “Do come inside.”  I admit to being a little taken aback when he did, without all the usual yelling.

It’s been a long time since someone walked into my lab. Usually I have to sedate them first.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 03:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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