Joel Green's Blog

 

Content warning: this story involves details of vehicle cruelty.

Fans of Australian motorsport were shaken yesterday after A Current Affair aired an explosive exposé about cruelty toward cars competing in some of the country’s most prestigious racing events.

The Australian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Automobiles (ASPCA) obtained secretly-recorded video from behind the scenes of the popular V8 Supercar series. The footage showed sickening abuse of race vehicles being kicked and flogged and in one horrifying case a Triple Eight team Commodore having its power-steering reservoir topped up with brake fluid.

[image error]Graphic – the footage that shocked the nation.

An extensive investigation found a culture of widespread and casual cruelty that has provoked public outcry, with concerned citizens around the country calling for greater regulation of the racing industry.

International pop sensation Katy Perry, previously scheduled to perform at the Newcastle 500 concert on November 23rd, has withdrawn from the racing event in response to the revelations, stating: “I cannot, in good conscience, participate in an event that has been the cause of innocent cars suffering.”

Other celebrity guests are reportedly considering a boycott of the remaining events in the 2019 V8 Supercar series, as well as other motorsport events, such as the Australian Grand Prix, MotoGP at Phillip Island, and the Australian Rally Championship.

The story comes in the wake of recent public debates regarding the practice of euthanising damaged race-cars, with whistleblowers coming forward to suggest cars that might not race again but could still go on to a full life were being destroyed. The accusation levelled at the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), the official governing body of motorsport in Australia, is that unnecessary vehicle killings take place in order to save on costs and, worse still, to cannibalise parts.

[image error]A far too common sight – Crashed race-cars face the likely prospect of euthanasia.

The cruel and exploitative practices are in clear defiance of both industry regulations and the, until recently, clean and wholesome public image that Australian Motorsport organisers have tried to present to the public.

The developing scandal is expected to have a major and long-term impact on the car racing industry. When called upon to comment on the story, CAMS President Andrew Papadopoulos said only: “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

What indeed, Andrew.

[image error]Is their suffering the price for our entertainment and betting?

Joel Green – 28/10/2019

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Roger Hargreaves‘ previously unpublished and supposedly “lost” instalment in the ‘Mr. Men’ series of children’s books has finally been released, posthumously, after nearly forty years spent gathering dust in the vault of Egmont Publishing.

‘Mr. Cunty’ was written during a dark chapter in Hargreaves’ life when his battle with acetone inhalation had reached crisis point and he was committing armed robberies to support his £1,500 a week varnish habit. The notably bleaker tone and subject matter of this ‘Mr. Men’ book is immediately apparent.

Reading as a sharp and brutal protest against social convention, the titular Cunty spends the 32 pages systematically attacking and upsetting other characters for no apparent reason, giving vent to a formless existential rage. Among his acts of malicious, anti-social contempt are clear incidences of criminal malfeasance, including theft, vandalism, assault and arson, which Hargreaves presents as fun and free of consequence. Indeed, the book could be seen as an incitement and celebration of destructive criminality.

[image error]Written in 1980, the book was originally refused publication.

The absence of the expected redemptive arc or lesson within the text is almost certainly deliberate. Hargreaves is presenting a demonstration of moral relativism, with Cunty’s normative perspective clearly holding his actions to be acceptable or justified by his antipathy toward society’s rusted-on mores, and challenging the reader (ages 3 and up) to ask themselves by what criteria can they objectively judge the character’s decision to fill his neighbour’s mailbox with dog excrement.

Mischief-makers will enjoy Mr. Cunty’s antics in their own right, clapping in delight as he paints a massive phallus on the window of the local post office or throws darts at senior citizens on the street, but fans of the author’s previous works may lament the sharp departure from his more wholesome offerings and morality tales. Missing here is the embracing, humanistic content found in such seminal classics as ‘Mr. Tickle’ or ‘Mr. Bump.’ The bright, vibrant art remains the same as before, but this bitter, iconoclastic U-turn on Hargreaves’ part is clearly the reason for this work’s having been originally withheld from publication. One can relate with Egmont Publishing‘s difficult position, especially when turning to the final page whereupon Mr. Cunty breaks the fourth wall, pointing directly at the reader, snarling: “And fuck you, too!”

-J. Green

★★☆☆☆

-Professor Joel Green, BSc

The human population has more than doubled since 1970, now growing close to eight billion people worldwide, with Homo sapiens the most populous large animal on the planet. Around 108 billion people have ever lived on Earth. This means that today’s population size makes up 6.5% of the total number of people ever born, a truly staggering rate of growth and one that must be considered unsustainable within a closed system like the Earth’s.[image error]

Two converging factors drive this prodigious rate of growth. H. sapiens as a biological organism like any other exhibits behaviours governed by evolutionary psychology, or ‘instinct’, one of the most powerful driving forces of which is the reproductive urge. A combination of sexual and nurturing behaviour traits reinforced by oxytocin releases and other myriad neurochemical stimulations of the amygdala and other areas of the brain too numerous to mention here conspire to manufacture the reproductive urge. The purpose of this is the same ultimate goal of all biological function – to facilitate the perpetuation of genetic material. Darwinian evolution (natural selection) is a process of trial and error selecting for those traits best suited to continue the replication of DNA ad infinitum (as those organisms less inclined to do so are now extinct, leaving behind only the most successful survivors and breeders).

The tendency to reproduce has, in the history of an organism like H. sapiens, been tempered by environmental factors that place downward pressures on the growth of a population. Humans (recently in evolutionary terms) experienced predation, disease, starvation, exposure and a whole host of factors producing significant attrition rates. Prehistoric humans were short-lived animals with a high rate of infant mortality. Modern humans, conversely, enjoy an extensive built environment, absent predators, insulation from the elements, plenty of food and the advantage of advanced medicine. Those pressures against our population’s growth have been removed, however the old ‘software’ running human instinct remains unchanged. H. sapiens is reproducing as if it were still crouched in a dark cave in fear of the Sabre-toothed Cat lurking outside.

That is the problem.

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When old-world reproductive drive meets new-world survivability, the result is a catastrophic and unsustainable population explosion. Now, even disasters resulting in massive-scale human causalities are insufficient to put a cap on the growth rate. The base population is sufficiently large enough to absorb major culls and only responds with an even greater increase in reproduction rates, observed as “baby booms” seen after major periods of instability and large numbers of deaths (like the aftermath of World War 2). There is a demonstrable spike in births occurring nine months after a major disaster in a given area. This is due to another neurological aspect of human (and other animals’) reproductive drive – high stress and attrition rates among the population is responded to with an increased urge to breed in a period of instability and fear in order to maximise the chance for at least some of the offspring to survive.

This, it can be concluded, is why Thanos was severely misguided in his plan to eliminate half of the population of the universe.

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Not only would the measure only be temporary, leaving the halved populations, still governed by the same reproductive drives, to sooner or later re-attain the same population as before. But also triggering post-disaster “baby booms” across the cosmos.

The core problem remains un-addressed: technological beings are still governed by animal instinct that does not take their technological advancement into account. Thanos could have reduced the reproductive drive and/or fertility rates in intelligent, technological entities across the universe. That would have actually achieved a significant, long-term reduction in population rates down to a more manageable level.

As it is, Thanos’ plan would only necessitate a repeat culling every fifty years or so.

In conclusion, it is clear that Thanos is a moron.

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Chapter 1

It was three in the afternoon on one of those October days when the sun isn’t shining and the threat of rain hangs heavy over the city. Blue streamers from the end of my fortieth cigarette curled in the soft, slanting light as I waited for my client to show.

   The rattle and chime of Lyn’s typing came softly from the outer office and somewhere on the street below a truck horn barked reprovingly as the world wheeled past. The world I’d once sought to conquer and dominate and now merely hoped to move through with as few bruises as possible.

At length, the typing outside stopped and I could overhear a murmur of feminine voices. No words – my ears being only ragged holes in the sides of my bare skull meant I’d never be an accomplished eavesdropper – but I knew the appointment had arrived. Maybe a big job. Maybe enough to pull this small-time Evil Detective Agency up into the big-leagues.

Or maybe just another husband stepping out on his dame. Nickles and dimes and the indignity of sifting through the sordid minutia of fools.

‘Yes,’ I answered the quiet rap on the door, and Lyn put her dark, slender face through.

‘Your three o’clock is here,’ she said, mainly for the look of the thing, as if I didn’t know.

As if this weren’t the only appointment we’d had for the whole day.

‘You’ll want to see her, she’s a knockout,’ Lyn added, dropping a conspiratorial eyelid.

‘Send her in, you bumbling fool!’ I barked, waving a fist in her direction. Again, mainly for the look of the thing.

   Lyn disappeared and the door opened a moment later to admit a woman. She was thirty or so; tall and delicately put together, but with a firmness that told me this one was a survivor. She wore pale turquoise slacks and walked in them as if she were floating. Her hair was a fine gold wave that hung below her shoulders and curled in at the bottom. Her eyes were iron grey, and had almost no expression when they looked at me. She came over and smiled with her mouth and that was as far as it went; little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh copy paper and as shiny as porcelain. Her face was pale as though at the end of a long illness.

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   ‘You’re taller than I expected,’ she said, without preamble. ‘Not much meat on your head either.’

   ‘And you’re uglier! But my mother always told me it’s what’s inside that counts,’ I shot back. ‘Didn’t yours?’

   ‘I suppose a man with a skull for a face would have to believe that.’

   I decided to let that pass and smiled at her pleasantly. Or I smiled at her in some manner at least – no lips or cheeks to get in the way favouring the world with an eternal grin even when I felt lousy. I felt lousy right at that moment – too much whiskey the previous evening and too many cigarettes to chase it away today. I watched the dame leaning against the edge of my desk. She was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She watched me looking her over and didn’t seem to mind it.

   ‘You didn’t give your name when you made the appointment, Miss…?’

   ‘Adora,’ she said. ‘And it’s not Miss. It’s Princess.’

   ‘I should say it is,’ I muttered. ‘That would be sister to the cursed Prince Adam, then? The Greyskulls?’

   ‘A common misconception – Greyskull isn’t our family’s surname.’

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   ‘It matters not! I shall destroy your whole meddling bloodline! But for now, I’m sure a royal lady didn’t come all the way downtown just to crack wise about my face. Cigarette?’

   She took one from my case when I offered and our fingers briefly touched before she pulled back, almost with reluctance unless it was my wishful thinking. I lit the smoke for her and thin wisps of it seeped from her symmetrical nostrils.

   ‘I’m not sure yet if you’re the man for the job I have in mind,’ Adora murmured.

‘I’m the best Evil detective in the city and you’d better not forget it, missy! If anyone says otherwise I will obliterate them!’ I cackled then for almost a full minute, fists held out to the sides and skull thrown back as hard-edged gusts of laughter rattled the light-fixtures. I’d tried unsuccessfully to curb this habit and hoped she wouldn’t be put off by the display. If she was, she didn’t show it – continuing to smoke with a slight curl to her lips.

‘Now suppose,’ I said when I’d gotten myself under control, ‘you tell me your problem from the beginning and then I’ll tell you if I’m the man for the job.’

   She smoked for a moment looking down at me and I didn’t rush to fill the silence. Let her draw her own conclusion – a dingy little office, a rundown man in a threadbare suit with a .38 and a grinning skull where a face should be. Every inch the private detective – grim flotsam washed up on life’s shore and ready and willing to pick through the pieces of other people’s secret disasters.

   Princess Adora appeared to make her decision.

‘Mr. Skeletor,’ she said, ‘I need you to discover who is blackmailing me.’

*

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Surviving excerpts from the lost draft screenplay that eventuated after George Lucas initially approached Monty Python (Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones & Palin) with his Indiana Jones story.

*

NAZI MECHANIC

‘Tis but a scratch.

INDIANA JONES

A scratch? You were hit by a propeller blade. It’s torn open your chest and almost severed your head.

NAZI MECHANIC

No it hasn’t.

INDIANA JONES

Well what’s that then?

NAZI MECHANIC

…I’ve had worse.

*

INDIANA JONES

I’m looking for the Ark.

SALLAH

The park? There’s a lovely one just down the street. Got a fountain and everything.

INDIANA JONES

No, the Ark. The Ark.

SALLAH

Ohhh!

INDIANA JONES

Yes.

SALLAH

That bloody big boat what Noah put all the animals in? Won’t find anything like that ‘round here mate. You sure you wouldn’t like to see the park?

INDIANA JONES

Yes!

SALLAH

Come on then, I’ll take you…

INDIANA JONES

I mean no! I don’t want to see the bloody park! Look you stupid bastard I’m looking for the Ark of the Covenant, alright? It’s a box. A golden box with stone tablets inside.

SALLAH

A golden box?

INDIANA JONES

Yes! A box 2​1⁄2 cubits in length, 1​1⁄2 in breadth, and 1​1⁄2 in height.

SALLAH

…What’s a cubit, then?

INDIANA JONES

I’ll…! (visibly resists the urge to punch SALLAH) It’s about eighteen inches.

SALLAH

(Shakes head) No.

INDIANA JONES

What do you mean “no”?

SALLAH

Too small, Indy. Wouldn’t be able to get two of every animal in that.

INDIANA JONES

It’s not the damned boat! It’s a box, like a chest!

SALLAH

You mean to tell me a small box and a giant ocean-going ship are both referred to as an “Ark”? Where’s the linguistic sense in that? You don’t put your clean towels away in a yacht, do you?[image error]

INDIANA JONES

It doesn’t matter…

SALLAH

When you go on a picnic, you don’t pack some sandwiches in a frigate. You wouldn’t attend a business meeting carrying important papers in a ferry…

INDIANA JONES

Stop it…

SALLAH

Hold on, I’m waiting for an important letter, I’ll just check the mail-sloop.

INDIANA JONES

Shut up!

SALLAH

…Anyhow, the Nazis found your golden box.

INDIANA JONES

What?!

SALLAH

It’s alright – I know where they’ve taken it. If you hurry, you can get to the port and sneak aboard.

INDIANA JONES

Aboard what?

SALLAH

Their ocean box.

*

BELLOQ

Do you realize what the Ark is? It’s a transmitter, a radio for speaking to God.

CUT TO: Collage cartoon GOD reading a newspaper in heaven with a walkie-talkie on a sideboard that begins crackling with static. He looks over his newspaper but chooses to ignore it.

GOD

I’m not getting that.

*

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WESTCHESTER, NY:  Interscholastic football playoffs this weekend were marred by ugly accusations of unfair advantage. Coaches, players and supporters voiced vitriolic objections to the participation of the team from Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in the competition.

[image error]Other players are reportedly terrified of facing the Xavier team.

The Xavier team, which has enjoyed an unbroken win streak since first entering the playoffs, was booed off the field after Sunday’s game against Greenwich School for Unremarkable Non-Mutants, who failed to score.

‘It’s pointless to play against them,’ complained one opposing player. ‘They can make the ball go wherever they want it to – at one point it stayed in the air circling for five minutes before flying through the posts. Nobody even kicked it!’

Founder of the school, Professor Charles Xavier, responded dismissively to these complaints, stating: ‘There is nothing in the rules of the game that prohibit the use of psychokinesis, nor any other mutant power. My students are employing their own natural, unaugmented abilities, just like the other players. Anybody who doesn’t like it can eat a dick.’

[image error]Charles Xavier dismissed concerns.

When asked if he thought pitting mutant superhumans against regular humans in a competitive event violated the spirit of the sport, Xavier laughed and responded: ‘U jelly?’

Sunday’s game was punctuated by opposing players being hit by beams of energy fired from an Xavier team-member’s eyes, a quarterback who flew through the air on gusts of gale-force wind while directing lightning-bolts toward the other team, and a running back whom no opposing player was able to tackle on account of having become intangible and running straight through the other team’s bodies.

Officials have responded to the controversy, stating that the issue is being looked into. One spokesperson from the football authority has noted: ‘While the Xavier team has not broken any specific rule, nobody could reasonably expect the rule-makers to have foreseen prehensile tails, retractable metal claws or kids who can make the ball explode. I think it’s possible we’re being trolled.’

[image error]Spectators were not amused.

Excerpts from my unproduced screenplay, which was repeatedly rejected by the short-sighted robots at 20th Century Fox.

 

ALIENS versus MARY POPPINS

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ACT 1

SCENE 1

FADE IN:

INT: USCSS CHERRY TREE, COMMERCIAL RESEARCH VESSEL, DEEP SPACE

A row of cryogenic pods stands silently in a room being monitored by automated systems. As we pan across the transparent faceplates of the pods, we come to rest on one containing a woman wearing a sensible hat and stern countenance. This is MARY POPPINS. Her eyes snap open as the cryogenic pod emits a beep and hissing sound.

 

COMPUTER:

Warning. Unscheduled termination of stasis. Warning. Warning.

 

MARY POPPINS:

(Raps the inside of the cryo-pod with her parrot umbrella handle, causing it to spring open.)

 

COMPUTER:

Warning. Unscheduled…

MARY POPPINS:

That will be quite enough of that, thank you!

** ** **

 

ACT 1

SCENE 19

 

EXT: ALIEN PLANET

 

A desolate landscape of sharp, windswept rocky outcrops beneath a grey sky. MARY POPPINS and the rest of the crew have gathered outside the dropship and are looking toward a low collection of structures in the distance.

 

CORPORAL HICKS

Man, what a shit-hole.

MARY POPPINS

Language, Dwayne. Though we may be on an uncivilised world, there’s no reason for us to behave in an uncivilised manner.

HICKS

(Looks at MASTER SERGEANT APONE) Is she for real?

 

APONE

Real as they come, marine, and practically perfect in every way. All you grunts better take heed and watch your fucking mouths.

MARY POPPINS

(Horrified) Now Albert, really!

MARY POPPINS reaches into her carpet-bag and produces an M41A Pulse Rifle, significantly larger than the bag itself. The MARINES watch this and exchange glances.

MARY POPPINS

Come along, soldiers. Spit spot!

She struts off toward the buildings, wielding her rifle and umbrella. The bemused MARINES follow behind.

 

** ** **

 

ACT 2

SCENE 21

 

INT: FUSION REACTOR CHAMBER

 

Organic constructions have been interwoven with the machinery and conduits of the power plant. Numerous face-hugger eggs litter the mist-shrouded floor. MARY POPPINS enters the room from above, drifting slowly down on her umbrella.

 

MARY POPPINS

Oh dear, what a frightful mess!

 

A number of Alien XENOMORPHS begin stirring, detaching themselves from walls where they had moments before seemed like part of the bio-mechanical structures. They begin surrounding MARY POPPINS.

 

MARY POPPINS

(Unimpressed) I must say, you’re a sight – the lot of you.

 

A XENOMORPH draws closer, hissing, and extends its secondary mouthparts toward MARY POPPINS. She whacks the secondary mouth with her parrot umbrella handle and it withdraws, the XENOMORPH recoiling with a high-pitched yelp.

 

MARY POPPINS

(Singing)

An intelligent creature

would not be so tactless.

Never burst from chests

or lurk in nests

and prey on the hapless…

(Raises her flamethrower)

…Just… a

spoonful of napalm…

 

** ** **

 

ACT 3

SCENE 18

INT: USCSS CHERRY TREE, COMMERCIAL RESEARCH VESSEL, IN ORBIT.

 

The ALIEN QUEEN bursts through the cargo hatch roaring. MICHAEL and JANE BANKS cower before the creature as it advances.

 

MARY POPPINS

That will be quite enough. Honestly – gallivanting around like that in a spaceship! Now get away from them, you bitch. Spit spot!

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New York – A small team of scientists has done the impossible; demonstrating for the first time in human history the factual existence of an immortal soul and a continuation of conscious existence beyond death. This discovery should be world-changing and paradigm-shifting. Whole new avenues of science and technology should be opening; new fields of human inquiry burgeoning with potential for a greater understanding of ourselves and our universe.

Should be.

Instead, what has emerged as a result of this incredible discovery may be the most depraved and wasteful abuse ever perpetrated by scientific minds corrupted by monetary concerns.

I am referring, of course, to the Ghostbusters.

[image error]Should our first contact with the Other Side have been an act of violent aggression?

It has been said that only the dead have seen the end of war. While that may be so, we can now be perfectly certain they have not seen the end of exploitation. While the people of New York continue to find sordid entertainment in the novel distraction of a team of spook-catching spiritual exterminators, this journalist cannot help but wonder how many of them have given the matter any deeper consideration.

Francine Kirkpatrick, 48, is one citizen with reason to question the actions of the ‘boys in grey’. She accuses the Ghostbusters of assaulting and unlawfully imprisoning the spirit of her mother, Joanne, who passed away in 1976. After the death, Ms. Kirkpatrick sold her mother’s Brooklyn apartment and was unaware of the subsequent years of haunting experienced by the new owners. The spiritual presence in the apartment prompted the residents (who declined to be interviewed) to contact the Ghostbusters. The quartet of erstwhile scientists undertook the job of removing the ghost of Joanne Kirkpatrick, a process that involved attacking her with a stream of focused protons, injuring and weakening her coherent energy before ensnaring her inside a muon trap for transportation to a containment grid, a kind of purgatory-like indefinite detention facility. The apartment in question was destroyed.

And what crime had the soul of this departed woman committed to warrant such brutal and severe punishment? Rattling crockery and opening and closing some doors? Public nuisance, at best. Would we blithely accept so savage a response if the perpetrator possessed a corporeal body? Of course we wouldn’t – such actions as undertaken by the Ghostbusters would rightly be regarded as an abuse of civil rights being carried out by individuals who have no authority to be issuing or enforcing any kind of sentence.

[image error]Respect for the dead?

The people of the world now know that there is, indeed, life after death. But coming fast on the heels of that revelation, through the contemptuous, profit-driven abuses carried out by the Ghostbusters, is the disquieting realisation that all of the rights we enjoy as citizens of a free nation cease to exist at the moment of our body’s demise. And, beyond that, rather than seek a greater understanding of the spiritual world, the corporeal one has instead opted to attack and exploit it. As, perhaps, should have been expected.

Francine Kirkpatrick has petitioned the city and state to compel Venkman, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore to immediately release her imprisoned mother from confinement, but her enquiries have been consistently rebuffed. A direct appeal to Peter Venkman, ostensible ‘leader’ of the Ghostbusters, only resulted in sneering jokes from the scientist and an inappropriate sexual approach to the understandably upset Francine. Her next course will be to file civil suit for the freedom of her mother’s spirit, a case that, if heard, may set judicial precedent for the recognition of the inalienable human rights of a disembodied soul.

[image error]Have we literally outlawed the spirits of the deceased?

I encourage the reader to consider how they would feel if it were the spirit of their deceased loved one, shot with a destructive particle beam and encased in a cage of pure energy beneath a dilapidated firehouse. Or perhaps consider if it were you, killed and wandering the Earth, confused and hurt by your death and not knowing where to turn. Is a savage attack and imprisonment without trial by a gang of unscrupulous mad scientists really the best we can do for our honoured dead?

A day will come when the Ghostbusters are regarded as the monsters they are, listed alongside the likes of Josef Mengele, Reinhard Heydrich and the perpetrators of the Tuskagee experiment.

Venkman, Stantz, Spengler and Zeddemore have all declined to be interviewed.

Chapter 1: A Harrowing Tale

September 4th, 1857

The extraordinary series of events I have undertaken to document within these pages were relayed to me by a mariner and long-time acquaintance going by the name of Starkweather. He, in his vocation as rigger’s mate upon a ship of Her Majesty’s navy had been told the tale as you will read it here by a Captain of some renown whom he had served under.[image error]

                The Captain, Cross by name, of whose credibility and upstanding reputation I am steadfastly assured, encounter, during a furlough in the port of Bombay, a most fascinating apparition. An emaciated man curled over upon himself pitiably within the gloomy confines of a dockside tavern whom Captain Cross, being of an inquisitive and charitable nature, felt compelled to engage with, in the passage of time and to perhaps inject in so dour-looking a figure a little of the cheer of fellowship, in conversation. It transpired that the man in question was Doctor John Fairchild of whose theses on the interactions between naturally-occurring chemicals and the physical body of man are well known to readers of scientific journals.

                Deep in his cups already upon the approach of Captain Cross, the Doctor revealed after some time, the nature of his malaise. This he told to Captain Cross, who told it unto my dear friend Starkweather, who henceforth relayed it to me, and I now to you.

                Some months before, while visiting Munich for a conference of notable scientific minds on the subject of and developments within the field of chemical research, Doctor John Fairchild had held a lecture on the behaviour of certain metallic compounds. A the conclusion of a talk I am informed was well-received, Fairchild was sought out by a messenger clutching a package addressed to the Doctor. Within was a thick assemblage of handwritten sheets detailing the experiences of one Emily Fitzpatrick, a woman of wealth and grace whom Fairchild had, a decade earlier, endeavoured to court without success. Perplexed at this unexpected contact, the Doctor retired to his rooms, there to begin reading the lengthy and puzzling correspondence.

                This correspondence from the beautiful Emily Fitzpatrick to Doctor Fairchild he communicated from memory to Captain Cross, who unerringly imparted it to Starkweather, my friend who conveyed it to my own noble self that I might duplicate it here now.

                Emily Fitzpatrick had married another man, as it transpired and as Fairchild would have considered natural and to be expected. The man in question was an explorer of note and recipient of many royal honours for expeditions into the heart of the Dark Continent. Wealthy and highly-regarded, it was a good marriage and one in which Emily was happy until one morning of half a year previously when she, searching for a fresh ink-pot in the study of her husband, Peter Ross. There she happened, by chance, upon a small case resembling a sea chest in miniature and, overcome by innocent curiosity, she carelessly opened the case in question and unknowingly, like Pandora of myth, unleashed a dark knowledge into her marriage and her life. Emily’s battle with this secret knowledge provided the impetus for her reaching out to her old friend and one-time suitor, Doctor Fairchild. Imploring him for advice and solicitude in this, her time of anguished indecision, she set about reproducing the document she had discovered in her husband’s study, loathe as she was to remove it from that hidden place lest her husband note its disappearance and know the she had seen it.[image error]

                The document, she wrote, spoke of an extraordinary sequence of events that her husband, Peter Ross, had been told of by an ancient native medicine-man during one expedition into the depths of Central Africa. The wise old savage had told Ross a tale that Ross had recorded and carelessly left in the desk of his study, whereupon it was discovered by his wife, the lovely Emily, who recounted it by correspondence to Doctor Fairchild, later to be drunkenly relayed by him to Captain Cross who told it to Starkweather and he to I and I to you. The horrifying and inexplicable nature of the account affected the intrepid explorer, Ross, so completely that he had chosen then to retire from the exploration service and undertake life as a married and wealthy man about town, never travelling again beyond the bounds of London.

                What tale could be so harrowing as to provoke so violent a shift in the course of a brave Englishman’s life? I shall tell it to you now, though beware! Horrors lurk in the world of men, but none so terrifying, so unnerving as to unmake a man, but those that lurk not in the world, but in the hearts of men.

                The ancient medicine man’s story was as follows:

                Some years before his fateful meeting with the explorer, Ross, the savage whose name could not be spelled out in these pages for the letters to correspond to the sounds in question do not presently exist, had met another such explorer, a Dutchman by the name of De Vries. De Vries was endeavouring to trace the course of the Zambezi to its source and rested a night in the village of our shaman, who had learned some of the languages of white men and engaged the explorer in conversation. It was then that De Vries told the medicine man of a peculiar encounter he had had whilst at sea when his ship drew, as is custom, alongside a whaling schooner out of Lisbon to pass news, letters and partake of minor trade between crews. During this stopping of the two ships, De Vries had met a caulker’s mate upon the deck of the Portuguese vessel who offered to trade for a jade necklace worn by De Vries, which he had acquired years before in the Orient. As payment for the jade, the mate, named Almeida, offered a story both startling and true, which he would undertake to tell unto De Vries but conclude only with the jade in his hand. Amused by this offer, De Vries accepted, and the sailor began relaying him the tale.

                When it neared its conclusion, a badly shaken De Vries wordlessly handed over his jade necklace, unable to part from the caulker’s mate until he had concluded the story. That story he repeated to the ancient savage, who in turn told it to Ross whose wife, Emily, discovered an account of it in his study and forwarded a copy to her friend, Doctor Fairchild, who told it to Captain Cross, who passed it to Starkweather and he to I so that I might put it to ink and paper and preserve it thus.[image error]

                The Portuguese sailor, Almeida told of a woman in white who had once stolen aboard a ship on which he had served as she set sail from Lisbon for London. An Englishwoman whom, once discovered, pleaded mercy from the crew that they would allow her to remain on-board. When asked why, she began to relay a tale…

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Excerpt from chapter 1:

I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt stupider to be sure, but more carefree for it, happier in body. Within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered nonsense running in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, a daft and uncomprehending freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be less competent, tenfold less competent; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations.

“Bean,” said I, and knew it to be my name in this new identity birthed by chemical alteration of the mind. ‘Bean!’ I said again, exalting, and forthwith I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house. Coming to my room, I found the mirror and saw for the first time the appearance of Mr. Bean.

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The moronic side of my nature, to which I had now transferred control of body and form, was less robust and less developed than the wise which I had just deposed. Even as intelligence shone upon the countenance of the one, abject idiocy was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. And yet as I looked upon that goofy dimwit in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. Delighting, I (Bean) produced an absurd little dance before the looking-glass, strutting and thrusting while making faces at myself.

Excerpt from chapter 8:

…But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of Mr. Bean.[image error]

I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I was in a fugue of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll but awakened as Mr. Brean. How was this to be explained? I asked myself; and then, with another bound of terror–how was it to be remedied?[image error]

I began to reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence. This other part of had lately been much exercised and nourished and it had seemed to me as though the body of Mr. Bean had grown stronger, conscious of a more generous tide of blood. I began to sense a danger. If this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Bean become irrevocably mine. All things seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold of my original and smarter self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and stupider…