A RIGHT STITCH UP
By Richard Kerr
Copyright 2011 Richard Kerr
Smashwords Edition
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Discover other works by the author on Smashwords.com
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A RIGHT STITCH UP
These words have just been downloaded by you, gentle reader, in the form of a ‘book’. Yet they were not words before you did this. They were just 1s and 0s held on a hard drive somewhere. Without you this story would not exist. Some smarty pants said, not that long ago, that as soon as an author starts to write he (or she) enters into his own death. Don’t know what the hell that means. Perhaps it means that all these words lie dead until a reader, such as you, picks them up and gives them life. That means so much more these days when the words don’t even exist, never mind die, until you open them on a viewer.
I will have been long dead by the time you read this. The person who typed up this story, Richard Kerr is, hopefully, still alive and well. Nice chap. I know you are reading this. Yet I’m clearly not a ghost looking over your shoulder.
---oOo---
I died in the year 18—(In my day novelists were discreet about dates). More importantly I was born in 17— to a mediocre wool merchant in Berne, Switzerland. My mother died when I was twelve and I had a younger brother. My brother had no interest in mental pursuits and desired only to see the world through joining the army. If he seems a simplistic cliché that is because he is of no importance to this story and I can’t be bothered to create more interesting siblings. I was schooled to the age of fourteen. Our house had few books, an un-tuned piano and no pictures. We were comfortable but hardly aspiring. Unfortunately I had bitten of the apple of learning and wanted more. How could I, a young woman of meagre means, ever have access to the teaching and knowledge I craved?
Then it struck me. Instead of vainly trying to raise myself to a class beyond my reach I could, instead, lower myself to the status of servant – a cleaner. I could apply to a university for the role of cleaner and find myself in the middle of a venerable institution. I wouldn’t be any sort of common scrubber you must understand - I had to ensure I wasn’t to be stuck under stairs. I put pen to paper and wrote an account of myself where I seemed fit to take care of rare books and expensive equipment. I would be a diligent and indispensable assistant to the professors and doctors of … where? Ingolstadt! I sent my letter off and awaited a reply.
---oOo---
I hope you are expecting my good news that my application was accepted and, two months later, I found myself in the German town with the high, white steeple. I presented my letter of acceptance to the university warden and was led to meet my first charge. Can you imagine how my heart pounded as I walked along the corridors of that place? I saw maps and statues of places and people I’d never heard of. From behind classroom doors I could hear the voices of teachers and students extolling or decrying the virtues and vices of this and that.
The warden left me at a door, which he knocked. A discussion going on inside but I was still bid to enter. In the room was a squat, uncouth man talking to a sallow, handsome younger fellow. I could immediately tell the student had intelligence enough to match the master but he seemed such a weed that I didn’t take to him. The professor, Mr Kempe, spoke with a derisory but humane manner and I thought, “I could work with this man.” He loaded his student up with a stack of books and sent him on his way.
I did indeed work with Mr Kempe – and Mr Waldman. I brushed their floors, polished their furniture, dusted their books, (which I borrowed), and bit by bit I got to washing and tidying their experimental apparatus and measuring devices. How they managed to discover anything before my arrival I’ll never know; their filth and slovenliness would surely have affected the purity of the experiments and results.
From them I learnt all there was to know of the natural sciences and chemistry. I was in their company most of the day and received a finer education than the students. Better, in fact; as a servant I was utterly invisible. After a year I ranked myself higher in intelligence and capability than any of the others – I could tell from the dull questions they asked. Except for one; that sallow, scrawny chap who I saw on the first day. I was determined to find out what he was up to.
---oOo---
This wasn’t difficult. I knew his name, Frankenstein, and I had access to all the university campus. I crept into his apartment, holding a dustpan and brush should he question my intent, and looked around. Frankenstein was asleep in bed, his health and appearance had wasted over the past year. I busied myself with his notebook and papers.
“Well, well, well. You sly thing,” I thought. I could see what he was trying to do, and I prided myself that no-one else could follow his advanced chemistry. “Ah, but you’ve made a mistake here!” I crossed out ‘potassium’ and wrote instead ‘magnesium’. I also had to swap ‘eye’ for ‘nose’ – clearly he had little visual cognition.
The young man awoke and stumbled out of bed. He would have found me – if he even could see me – tending the fireplace.
“Magnesium!” I heard him cry. “It’s incredible how an hour’s sleep can clear a muddled thought. The eye should go there! Why did I doubt that earlier?”
While he was concentrating at his desk I slipped a few text books under my arm and left, feeling determined to see this experiment through.
Day by day I found more and more to do in his room until I was cleaning and re-cleaning from dawn to dusk. I was stealthier than I guessed as he never once acknowledged my presence. The cleaning got more gruesome; he had taken to visiting the dissecting rooms and slaughter houses for body parts. In the evening he would dump his findings on his desk and stagger, as always, into bed. I was diligent. No matter what slithered out of his collecting sack and flopped onto the floor it would find itself washed and clean, sitting in a tray ready for the following day’s surgery.
---oOo---
Then his creation was complete.
---oOo---
“Eight feet in height and proportionally large!” he murmured, poring over the lifeless body. Before I left that night I had a peek under the sheet to check those stats. Mmmm. But the creature’s face! The yellow skin and watery eyes! I picked up a pen and drew a moustache on him, and that helped a bit. Frankenstein was asleep in his chair and I stole out reverently. Tomorrow would be a momentous day.
---oOo---
“I will collect the instruments of life above me!” cried Frankenstein, grasping at the air. I knew that wouldn’t work – and it didn’t. He checked his notes again. I had crossed out ‘above’ and had written ‘around’. He rubbed his forehead but re-arranged his apparatus accordingly. This time it worked and his creature awoke! And what did Frankenstein do? He went to bed. At least he was consistent. The poor creature was naked and confused so I found some clothes and dressed him. Then my eyes lighted upon Frankenstein’s notebook. My heart told me to steal it. Yet this would be the creature’s bible. It was his book of Genesis. I put it into his pocket. Would he ever learn to read it?
---oOo---
My schooling was done in Inglostadt. I couldn’t learn more and the sight of chemical apparatus had begun to sicken me. I returned home to Switzerland with a thirst, not for sciences, but for the arts. I waited until a suitable position became available. As chance would have it four English folk were holidaying in Geneva – poets – and temporary hands were needed for the summer. I applied for a post and got it.
How my new employers contrasted with my old ones! Serious and merry, privileged yet concerned with justice. Snobs, the lot of them. Though I had underestimated the young lady.
---oOo---
Luckily for me it was a wet summer and the four spent their time indoors discussing art and politics. I made any excuse to clean and tidy while they were talking. I listened hard and, as befitting my status, was completely ignored. At night they read ghost stories. This led to a proposition for each to write their own ghost story. Each duly told one (including a cracker about a skull-headed lady), except for the lady who apologised every morning for having failed to think of one. I had her pinned down as a dumb moxie. I soon regretted that.
One day she was in the library reading by herself. I was there with Helga, another maid up for the summer. As we tended to the carpets we swapped stories about our previous employers. I certainly frightened Helga with a little bit of my tale. Thinking back I should have noticed our English guest had stopped turning the pages of her book. So get this! That evening the young lady proudly announced she had a ghost story – and proceeded to tell her friends about Frankenstein, or what she could remember of it. I dropped my fire irons. For the first time she acknowledged my existence and I tried to hold her stare.
“That’s frightfully, hideously ghoulish!” exclaimed her friends. “Where did you get such an idea?”
“It was,” she struggled, “it was a… a dream. Yes, it was an awful dream. My imagination, unbidden and possessed, guided me and gave me images and, well, you know.”
“This idea intrigues me greatly,” said her fiancé. “I want to know more. I insist you write it as a book. You ought to be as famous as your parents. I insist.”
Her nerve broke for a moment and she glanced at me. “Certainly dearest,” she replied meekly.
---oOo---
The next day I was brushing down the stairs on my knees when I heard a light footfall descend. The hem of skirt stopped by me.
“The weather’s getting better. Will you be going out ma’am?” I commented, keeping busy.
“You know why I’m here, so cut the innocent act,” she snarled.
I looked up from my labours. “I don’t want to be doing this all my life. There’s profits to be had from publishing books. I’m looking for fifty/fifty.”
“Ha!” she laughed, “I’m not in this for the money. I’m only doing it to shut my drug-addict boyfriend up. You can have thirty.”
“You won’t get the rest of the story for that. Forty-five or my lips are sealed.”
“Forty/Sixty – take it or leave it.”
“Done!”
---oOo---
The book, as you, gentle reader, know was a success and I lived the rest of my days in comparative luxury surrounded by the arts, sciences and society I needed. And that’s my story done.
---oOo---
As an afterthought, I’ve observed that artists and writers have been doing for years something which scientists have yet to achieve: bringing the dead back to life. So I was wrong to say I will be dead by the time you read this. Rather I will be alive because you are reading this. But being alive is no state for me to be in. Luckily I can bow out at this point and, like a ghost on paper, I will simply fade awa.
The End
I hope you enjoyed this. If you like fantasy stories that also use plausible science/philosophy then you might enjoy my novel.
Totally For Real
The white trash Watsons, ungrateful and undeserving, are the ones who end up inside the biggest online fantasy world. Naturally they become celebrities. They have to use their new super powers to find the exit. In the way are goblins, spiders, wizards and dragons. Yet the worst foes turn out to be the ones they relied on for help. Can they find redemption in a world where their reality is unreal?
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1s Upon A Time
This is a brief look at why, in prehistoric times someone, somewhere invented counting. Understanding this should help understanding what a number is.
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