Dr. Dume ~ The Doctor is In

Father died many years ago, but his spirit dodged Death’s grasp. He’s been hanging out in the vaults ever since. He likes to count the money, which I don’t mind since he’s no longer capable of spending any of it. Having a ghost in the vault, especially a vindictive one, is better than any locks I could buy.

Still, Death comes around, once a month, with scythe and soul-bag and wanders around the castle looking for the old man. He’s never here. He always knows when Death’s on the way. It’s the darkening in the air that gives away his approach, every time.
 

I don’t think Death really expects to catch my father any more. I think he comes here for a cup of tea and a chat. He does his cursory examination of the castle while I make tea—well, this time Stumpy made the tea—and then we settle down in front of the fire and discuss the afterlife. I’ve noticed Death takes less and less time over these inspections each visit. I’ve also noticed he makes straight for the laboratory as his first stop.

It’s a difficult discussion, since Death doesn’t like to talk shop when he’s off-duty, so I’ve never gleaned too much information from him. He knows Red Stan. I gather they have some kind of business arrangement, but Death wouldn’t elaborate.

I threw another limb on the fire and settled back in my chair. “You’re becoming a regular visitor,” I said. “Do you have a lot of places you visit once a month?”

Death responded in that booming voice that could only be produced in an empty ribcage. “Not many.” He sipped his tea. It fell through his jaw but he caught it neatly with his lower ribs. “It’s just that there’s usually a few loose souls hanging around here.”

“Oh?” I wondered at this for a moment. “Ah, of course.” I nodded at his soul bag. “So, you’ve found Mr. Pustule, and that kitchen-seller? That’ll be why you always want to visit the lab.” It also explains why the Professor never finds any ghosts here.

“Well, yes. I doubt I’ll ever catch old Dume, your father, but this is rarely a wasted trip anyway.” He held up his cup. “Besides, the tea is good. Your new assistant brews a decent cup. I could do with someone like him back home.” Death leaned forward. “How’s his health?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. Stumpy’s likely to live a few years yet. If he becomes a nuisance, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, well.” He patted his soul bag. “Like I said, it wasn’t a wasted trip.”

“What will you do with them?” I tried to work the conversation around to life after death, as always. Death usually deflects me but I keep trying. I’d love to beat Romulus to the punch on this one.

“Well, the politician’s easy. You can tell them by their vile, pus-yellow auras. He’ll go straight to the hot place. The other one’s more difficult.”

“Oh?”

“The aura’s not clear. She did knowingly sell dodgy kitchens, but she did it to support her family.” Death sighed. “I hate the difficult ones. All that paperwork.”

I nearly choked on my tea. “Paperwork? You have paperwork?”

“Well, yes. Since the politically-correct started arriving, they’ve been making a fuss. The Big Guy hates it but his son does like to keep the peace. So they’ve been allowed to set up appeals, courts, hearings. They’ve even managed to drag a few lawyers out of the fire. I tell you, it’s a nightmare. The courtroom can’t have a roof or the burning lawyers fill it with smoke. Yet they won’t let you light your pipe in there, oh no. It makes no sense at all.” He slumped in his chair. “You won’t believe the ridiculous Spirit Rights movement they’ve started. I’ll tell you, it’s just not worth getting into Heaven any more. This lot want to let any old heretic take up residence. Last I heard, they were muttering about having more than the fair quota of Christians.”

“I hadn’t planned to go to Heaven. I wouldn’t know anyone.” I bit my lip. This was more information on the afterlife than I’d ever managed to coax from the black-clad skeleton. He noticed my interruption and must have realised he’d said more than he should, because his teeth clacked together.

“Well, I’d better get on. Thanks for the tea.” Death rose from his seat. “Busy times, you know. Wars everywhere.”

“I never watch the news. You’d need to talk to Stumpy about that, but I doubt you’d get any sense out of him.”

“Hmm. Chatty type, is he? Makes good tea, too.” Death made for the door. “Well, see you next month. If your father shows up, tell him I can fast-track him into a job with the red guy. Bypass all the queues, you know?”

“I’ll tell him,” I said. I don’t know why Death always heads for the door. Perhaps he regards it as courtesy, but he always disappears before he reaches it.

I finished my tea. With a little time to kill, I decided on a refill, but Stumpy was hiding under the kitchen table and refused to come out. I made my own.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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When I gave Stumpy a beating for breaking my computer, he insisted it was 'cruel and unusual punishment'. I think he gets such terms from those conspiracy-theory books he's always reading.

It did set me thinking though. A beating could be considered cruel, but hardly unusual. People have been beating each other since the dawn of mankind. It's one of the more usual forms of punishment, surely?

So I've tried to come up with a really unusual punishment. There's no need to worry about the cruel part - they're all cruel, that's the whole point. But what makes them unusual?

Crucifixion is very cruel indeed, but it dates back to Roman times. They used it a lot so it doesn't count as unusual. Stoning is older still, and still in common use in much of the world. Nothing unusual there.

One of the most imaginative proponents of this particular field of study was Tomas de Torquemada, head of the Spanish Inquisition. Aside from the general-purpose devices such as the rack, the Judas cradle and the iron maiden, Tomas spent a great deal of time researching unusual ways to cause pain and death. The head-clamp was a large vice, tightened a little each day until the victim died or agreed to confess to whatever he was accused of. Note that in those days you were not required to be guilty of anything in order to confess. Committing a crime was optional. Being punished for one was not.

There was one device of particular novelty, a small and portable hand-held torture implement. The pear-shaped metal head was inserted into the victim (yes, up there!) and left a shaft protruding. Turning the shaft rotated a screw-thread. This opened up the pear-shaped thing like the petals of a flower, though not a flower you'd want to sniff. Oh, and the points of the petals were sharp, too.

Once the opening had begun, the pear could not be extracted without literally ripping the guts out of the victim, In fact, it's fair to say that once this had been inserted, death by blood loss was the only possible outcome.

This definitely fits the description of cruel, and I think it's a good candidate for the award of unusual, too. It's a rare implement, and few of Tomas' guests survived his introductory devices so there weren't too many who experienced this one.

Tomas is a tough act to follow. Perhaps next time I'll bludgeon Stumpy with a live otter. That would certainly be unusual, and doubly cruel. Well, he put the idea into my head, so he has nobody to blame but himself.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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This morning I opened the door to a charming young lady. Her charm faded when I discovered she was there for one reason only. To sell me a fitted kitchen.

“Thanks,” I said, closing the door, “but my kitchen fits.”

“Oh, but—” She did that foot-in-the-door thing. Now, I have a particularly heavy door. It keeps out Ferals and the Slimy Swamp thing and is more than capable of crushing a kitchen-seller’s foot. It was such a dainty foot that I held back.

“Really, my kitchen fits perfectly. It doesn’t need adjusting.”

Her face dimpled. “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about a new kitchen. All wipe-clean melamine and stainless steel.”

“I like stains.”

She was undaunted. “A brand new cooker, too. What kind do you use now?”

I had to think about that one. There might once have been a brand name on that cauldron, but centuries of accumulated grease have obscured it. I can’t even tell where it might be.

“An old one,” I said.

“So wouldn’t you like a new one? With a double-oven, fan-assisted, integral grill, timer, and maybe even a rotisserie?”

“What’s a rotisserie?” I didn’t understand the rest of it either, but thought it best to deal with one thing at a time.

She opened her little bag and took out shiny brochures. I hate shiny brochures. They’re a sure sign someone wants your money. I still live by my grandfather’s code: the best way to make sure you always have money in your pocket is not to spend any of it. She held out the brochures. I ignored them.

“Well, it’s like a spike you stick through your meat, and it rotates as it cooks.” She waved the brochures. “You can read about it in here.”

I thought it best to change the subject and hope she forgot about the brochures. “Does it have a little clock on it?”

“Why, yes. A digital one, with an alarm.”

“Everything has a clock on it. I don’t need any more clocks.” I started to close the door. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I have to work on my novel.” I knew that was a mistake as soon as I said it. Her eyes lit up and she did the foot-in-the-door again.

“You’re a writer? How exciting. It must be wonderful to just sit around all day, making up stories and getting paid for it. What sort of things do you write? I might have read some of yours.”

“I doubt it. I’ve only just finished the first one and it’s not published.”

“Oh, but it must be a wonderful life, just writing away all day long.”

I shuddered at the thought. All day, every day? I could do that for maybe a week before I went over to YouTube to watch all the Rex the Runt videos again. Which reminds me, I haven’t looked in on Rex for some time.

“I don’t write all day long. I have serious research work to do, and… other things.”

“Research? Really? You have such a busy life, it sounds like you’d really benefit from one of our labour-saving kitchens. What kind of research do you do?”

She opened one of those shiny brochures. Deep in the bowels of the castle, I knew my vaults of doubloons and groats trembled with the movement of the pages. I couldn’t put my money through any more torment.

“Why don’t you come in and see for yourself?” I held the door open.

Her smile was so wide as she crossed the threshold I had to stop myself shaking my head in disbelief. It’s rare to find an experimental subject who enters so cheerfully, and with no sedation at all. Later, I had Stumpy take her to the kitchen. Well, the meaty parts, anyway.

I used tongs to transfer those shiny brochures to the furnace. She had a lot of them in her bag. It gave me a warm feeling to know I had saved a lot of people from the terrors of spending money.

In the depths of the vaults, I felt the doubloons sigh with relief.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I've turned off the 'trackback' thing. All it does is send me junk mail. Adverts for many, many things I didn't ever imagine I could need. When the 'kitchen sink' appeared, that was it.

So I've turned it off. I didn't really understand what it was for, anyway, so it's not likely to be a big loss.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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There's Samuel's Girl, for which I have a rambling synopsis that, in its current state, might well send an editor to sleep before the end. The book wouldn't (I hope) but that synopsis might. I keep trying.

The one-liner for that book is this:

Samuel Watson accidentally releases a demon, and the only one who can stop it is a self-centred professor who doesn’t believe in the supernatural.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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I had an interesting Beltane ceremony last night. After much chanting and shouting at Stumpy to keep the candles lit, I once more failed to materialize the Rabbit That Gives Eggs.

Instead, I was again visited by the red man with horns and a tail. He really is becoming something of a nuisance. He said his name was Stan, I think, but I didn’t quite catch it because every time he opens his mouth, flames come out. His hooves made more dents in my floor, too.

Anyway, Stumpy went off somewhere to sulk while I argued with Red Stan about his appearance. Stan insisted I called him again. I pointed out I had no idea who he was, and had never called him. He said I forced him to appear. I said I hadn’t even invited him to appear, and asked, quite politely I thought, if he wouldn’t mind just clearing out of the way so I could get on with calling the Rabbit. At this point, he produced a hat then pulled a rabbit out of it.

“Here you are,” he said. “I can get as many rabbits as you want. How about we make a deal?”

I eyed the rabbit. It looked perfectly ordinary to me. “Does it lay chocolate eggs?”

His eyes bulged. “Eggs? Flaming Hell, you don’t want much, do you? Okay, I’ll make it lay chocolate eggs. Now how about that deal?”

“I told you at Christmas, I never enter into any business arrangements with anyone who has a tail,” I said. “It’s unseemly.”

Stan pressed the rabbit back into the hat, which burst into flames and vanished. He’s good at those tricks, but overdoes the fire aspect, I think.

“So what do you want?” He placed his hands on his hips and glowered at me. I considered this very rude behaviour for a guest, especially an uninvited guest. I picked up my book and sought out the most powerful banishment spell in it. A few words later, and he was gone.

I sent him to the lowest depths of Hell. That’ll teach him.

Posted by Dr. Dume at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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