THE BIRTH OF DECOMP….

Jonathan was sweating despite the pouring rain.

He was rushing down the dark street towards the only light burning, grasping his precious cargo beneath his coat trying to keep it dry.

He stopped, reaching finally the stairs to Professor Boswell’s residence. The old brownstone harkened not to his approach and his breath was visible in the dim porchlight.

He paused, feeling the weight of the package in his arms, making sure it was still with him. He hesitated for a moment, and then rang the doorbell. From a window on the second story the Professor called to him;

“Jonathan! What in Reich’s name are you doing out there?”

“Forgive me sir, it was imperative that I came over right away, I think I..well, I have something here I think you would want to see.”

“Whats that? What have you got there boy?”

Jonathan looked up squinting in the rain.

“Can I come in, sir?”

Without a word, Professor Boswell cranked the window shut.

Jonathan stood in silence surveying the street.

“Well, come in, come in, boy.” The professor had appeared at the front door and ushered Jonathan inside. “Get in before you lose what little you have left of your senses.”

To surprise, Jonathan noticed that, despite the late hour, the Professor was not in his bedclothes. In fact a fire was burning and open books on the large desk suggested that the professor had been absorbed in some research. Perhaps he finally translated from Etruscan the writing on that brittle animal hide he had received anonymously in the mail. Or all that talk about evaporation, mercury and a crucifix taken for nonsense, but granted into light a graven truth.

Without announcement, Jonathan held out his hands. They held a package the size of a book that appeared to have been hastily rewrapped in brown paper.

The professor looked down at the offering and back up at Jonathan.

“What is the meaning of this, son?”

Jonathan began, breathlessly; “It’s just as your grandfather had told you, and your uncle, the Abbot. You thought they were suffering from some kind of schizophrenia, towards the end of their lives, those letters, those letters that they had written you..”

“Those letters…Yes, something had afflicted those men, or it seems the same vile spirit had infected them … their reputations never did recover.” Boswell gazed out towards the darkness.

“Yes, “ Jonathan began, “but you see, you may have been right all along.” He led the professor to his desk and lay the package down, removing the paper.

“Look.”

A leather bound notebook in dark brown, well worn and tattered sat before them.

For quite some time the book said nothing, neither did young Jonathan. The professor however was quite vocal;

“You barge in at an ungodly hour to deliver me some anonymous sketchbook? I hardly think this is in evidence of-“

“It’s not anonymous, sir.” Jonathan interrupted. “Look, here.” The lad opened the front cover and inlayed in gold upon the first page was the single letter “P”.

“So it was him.” The professor declared.

“This can only mean more malevolence, more ignominy, don’t you see? Upon my name, the name of my family. This..this man, this black spot, this pernicious vile growth of an individual. He is not a man; he is the plague himself. He has been the harbinger of complete death, not just of the body, of the soul itself. And he is upon me.”

Jonathan spoke to the professors turned back; “Perhaps there is some answers here.”

“There?!” Boswell cried.

“ In my own obituary!?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Case docket of Dr.P

“A mortal case of decomposition and malefactions”

ENTRY ONE.

Having had a very unpleasant return trip back into Philadelphia, and having no business in Philadelphia at all, I had resigned myself to my own quarters, a room I had been renting from a deaf woman above a tobacconists for the last two months. The best landlady I had ever had, although my recollection of her is vague. She was a very devout woman and very pleased when I told her that the murmurs she thought she had heard in the night was me praying the rosary.

Shortly after me arrival I was visited by that Dane, Rosencrans, acting as an errand boy for a particular family.

Rosencrans was sick from years on the street, his lungs rattled as he coughed wet into his fist. Because I knew him long before he had lost his pedigree and because he served a purpose to me, I often kept him “fed”, as they say. On this night I wrote him a prescription, which he took gratefully and stuffed into his greasy overcoat.

In his pitiful manner, he began to relate the story of a young boy, the only son of the family, describing the catatonic state he lay in, the deathly pallor of his skin, pausing every few moments to cross himself and whisper a “blessed be to God” under his breath.

As an addict, the Dane knew how to lay it on quite thick, but theatrics aside, I was very interested in the case, particularly when the Dane began to describe the few moments of lucidity that occurred during the young son’s otherwise comatose condition.

As he related it; “He calls fer the strangest things, you see. They said he wants rotten fruit, and the corpses of dead birds, he sits up, you see, in his bed, his eyes rolled back in his skull and he points out his limp hand towards nothing. They said he even called fer a shovel and they asked why and he yelled that it was fer to bury himself with.”

I asked him if he knew if the boy were being fed, or otherwise well tended to.

“Canna say sir, I caught a glimpse of the poor child, blessed be to god, and he looked to me to be nearer to death than to any other visage, that’s fer sartain.”

ENTRY TWO

I have paid my first visit to the new patient, the young boy in question. I have found him a most disagreeable subject, unresponsive to any stimuli at all, and after spending already two long nights at the bedside I have yet to see any sudden relapses into perspicuity such as had been described to me, by both the Dane and by the boy’s own father, a man of otherwise obligatory respect.

ENTRY THREE

My patience had been tested and nearly exhausted by this case, when suddenly, as I was about to rise to leave, I witnessed myself the young patient’s outburst. Indeed he rose up in his bed, his eyes blank, pure white and his arm extended out to me like Christ calling out to St.Matthew and he called out to me by name. I scarcely understood much of it under his mumblings and drooling, like a raving idiot he was. “French Canadian bean soup…mother is the best bet…go not like a gentleman..” this much I could make out. I had noticed that in my haste I had set my journal down on the bed and his foot, as a result of convulsions now rested upon it. I thought little of this until I returned to my room. Upon opening the book again, I saw now that where his foot had rested, blank pages were now filled with writing, only in that corner where his flesh was. Every page, unfinished paragraphs, written in an unknown hand. Nothing of use, but enough to urge me to pay another visit the next day.

ENTRY FOUR

I arrived at the family home with a new journal, and asked to be alone with the patient. I immediately placed my blank notebook under the patient’s body. I waited.

ENTRY FIVE

I convinced the family to allow me to remove the patient from their home and place him under my personal care, where he could be tended to around the clock. What I read in that journal after I had removed it caused me much distress. Out of nowhere, apocryphal writings had emerged, where blank paper had been now blood was stained and unseen fingers smeared invisible ink. The patient made no move towards recovery, but that concerned me little.

I am fascinated by what is revealed in the notebook so much that could not be known by this patient, which could not be known by any human being.

I have to go further.

ENTRY SIX

Over the course of the last week, I have repeated the same procedure of placing my blank journal beneath the body of the patient, but I have noticed an interesting development. It seems that where I am placing the books, where they are in terms of the patient’s body, greatly affects the resulting output that emerges in them.

When I place a journal under the patient’s chest region, I notice the writings in the book strangely pertain more to the humanist poetics, that is if the words were actually written by a human, which remains to be seen, namely matters of emotion, and long diatribes of want and longing. When I place them anywhere from the waist down on the patient, the writings as they were, tend to be concerned with the more base instincts of men, absolute vile descriptions of lust and hunger, not only of sex but also of food, of inhalants, of intoxicants, and of other various stimuli some yet unknown to me.

When the books were beneath the limbs of the patient, they emerged containing pieces of rigid structure, Haiku, and notes on mathematics, although none of the mathematical theories written about were either accurate or founded in any logic. These I could scarcely read without consulting the book from the other arm, or leg, for sometimes one paragraph would continue in another book recovered from the opposite arm.

Most intriguing of all, was when I had placed a book beneath the patient’s head.

I have allowed only a few forays into this realm, as the output that appears is by far the most disturbing. Never in my own nightmares have I even begun to imagine such abominations, such depraved visions. Even the most offensive minds that I have encountered, even criminals can not compare. These particular books are precious to me, I can not lend them even to my own research.

ENTRY SEVEN.

Subject weakening.

Unresponsive to outside stimulus, Intravenous nutrition basically rejected due to thrombosis.

Physically; Patient incurable.

Written output still strong, same practices produces same results.

….

Patient unresponsive.

.

I hope to keep patient alive as long as I can.

..

Transmission strong.

..

..

..

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Journal Ends Here..

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