The times before the others, when it was just myself and Jackson were the hardest and perpetually monotonous moments of my life. While I socialized with the people of Florence, roaming the street as a peasant with the charming smile, coasting through the streets and spending my time with the flock of nightly denizens that were no better off than I for temporary companionship.
By the time the first breaks of dawn were climbing across the horizon, I would crawl my way back to our beaten two story home on the outskirts of the city. Reeking of liquor and cheap perfume that was never my own. Pleasantly exhausted from a night on the town. I?d come home to a dark home, stumbling in the dark to make my way to the lamp illuminated basement of our townhouse. Jackson was still awake, consumed by his work and studies in the dim lighting. With a corpse lying on a medical table, it?s chest cracked open like a walnut with the hunched Madman wrist-deep in its cavity. Books littered the wooden tables that ran across the circumference of the dusty basement. Medical books, written journals of his studies. Medical instruments glimmered in the lamplight, reflecting the dancing flame from it's shiny silver surfaces. All organized and laid out in rows by size and usage on the table closest to the Madman and his experiment.
Jack was a pariah of the town, but he was completely oblivious to the whispers and murmurs I often overheard of the Madman during my nightly strolls. The names they called him - Freak, Loon, Nut, Crazed, Psychopath. Those that spoke the worst of him hardly met the morning light, ?mysteriously? disappearing or were left to the gutters drenched in their own blood. They never caught the murderer. Those of my companions that mentioned them only received a shrug, and dismissive comment. ?They likely deserved it. There?s plenty of filth littering these streets. They probably just ran into trouble they couldn?t defend.? Those that accused Jackson, the Madman of their city, was met with logic: how could he, when he never left his home? An accomplice was mentioned, too. That was shut down with a coy smile and a cackle, reminding them that it was hardly sound for such a man to have a friend, let alone an accomplice. It was laughed off and left alone, replaced with something new for the citizens to gossip about a couple days later. Everyone moved on, as did I. Jackson never knew about any of it, holed up safely in his basement with his corpses and books. He never asked me where I got his specimens.
When rumors spread too fiercely, when the numbers grew too high? We faked our deaths. Set fire to our home and the corpses left behind were too crispy to identify. They were often of similar builds, so they chalked it up to a freak accident. A lamp had turned over, set the home ablaze.
We?d leave at night. With little belongings and provisions on our backs, we traveled. Him, clutching fast to his journals and books, his medical instruments fit snug in a sack. I carried the more logical items - clothes, food, water. We lived beneath the stars, I hunted off the land. Jackson always knew which plants that were safe and which were poisonous. I learned to be a successful hunter and fisherman in our travels, and he often collected more than we could carry for later experiments and tests. Our desire for knowledge was always contrasted.
We lived in such ways for sometimes months at a time, weeks on the rarer occasions when luck struck us well. When we found homes in the middle of nowhere, distant enough from cities to not be a bother. Sometimes they were abandoned, while other times? they were not. I was Jackson?s Dirty Hands, doing the things he couldn?t bring himself to. The times the buildings weren?t abandoned? Well, let?s just say that finding new specimens for Jacky Boy was never difficult.
We?d settle in, and start anew. Jackson never understood how I could believe our lives were so stodgy. To him, it was a new and exciting opportunity. For me, it was the same repetitious bull****. But when our hands were bloodied in different ways, I was not the one to find new discoveries. I was the one who found faces to be blurred, names forgotten. My temporary companions became less of nights spent, and more moments passed in the dingy alleyways before I?d move on.
The numbers piled. The rumors spread. And we were on the move again. City to city. Town to town. Country to country.
Jackson stayed the same, every time. He never changed. To this day, I don?t think he ever has. Perhaps a little more Mad, more eccentric with his knowledge that may have driven him to insanity by now. But me? My actions had only charged my transformation into the monster I am now. It?s laughable now? How I thought I couldn?t become something worse. The blood on my hands back in the day, it was only just the beginning.
By the time the first breaks of dawn were climbing across the horizon, I would crawl my way back to our beaten two story home on the outskirts of the city. Reeking of liquor and cheap perfume that was never my own. Pleasantly exhausted from a night on the town. I?d come home to a dark home, stumbling in the dark to make my way to the lamp illuminated basement of our townhouse. Jackson was still awake, consumed by his work and studies in the dim lighting. With a corpse lying on a medical table, it?s chest cracked open like a walnut with the hunched Madman wrist-deep in its cavity. Books littered the wooden tables that ran across the circumference of the dusty basement. Medical books, written journals of his studies. Medical instruments glimmered in the lamplight, reflecting the dancing flame from it's shiny silver surfaces. All organized and laid out in rows by size and usage on the table closest to the Madman and his experiment.
Jack was a pariah of the town, but he was completely oblivious to the whispers and murmurs I often overheard of the Madman during my nightly strolls. The names they called him - Freak, Loon, Nut, Crazed, Psychopath. Those that spoke the worst of him hardly met the morning light, ?mysteriously? disappearing or were left to the gutters drenched in their own blood. They never caught the murderer. Those of my companions that mentioned them only received a shrug, and dismissive comment. ?They likely deserved it. There?s plenty of filth littering these streets. They probably just ran into trouble they couldn?t defend.? Those that accused Jackson, the Madman of their city, was met with logic: how could he, when he never left his home? An accomplice was mentioned, too. That was shut down with a coy smile and a cackle, reminding them that it was hardly sound for such a man to have a friend, let alone an accomplice. It was laughed off and left alone, replaced with something new for the citizens to gossip about a couple days later. Everyone moved on, as did I. Jackson never knew about any of it, holed up safely in his basement with his corpses and books. He never asked me where I got his specimens.
When rumors spread too fiercely, when the numbers grew too high? We faked our deaths. Set fire to our home and the corpses left behind were too crispy to identify. They were often of similar builds, so they chalked it up to a freak accident. A lamp had turned over, set the home ablaze.
We?d leave at night. With little belongings and provisions on our backs, we traveled. Him, clutching fast to his journals and books, his medical instruments fit snug in a sack. I carried the more logical items - clothes, food, water. We lived beneath the stars, I hunted off the land. Jackson always knew which plants that were safe and which were poisonous. I learned to be a successful hunter and fisherman in our travels, and he often collected more than we could carry for later experiments and tests. Our desire for knowledge was always contrasted.
We lived in such ways for sometimes months at a time, weeks on the rarer occasions when luck struck us well. When we found homes in the middle of nowhere, distant enough from cities to not be a bother. Sometimes they were abandoned, while other times? they were not. I was Jackson?s Dirty Hands, doing the things he couldn?t bring himself to. The times the buildings weren?t abandoned? Well, let?s just say that finding new specimens for Jacky Boy was never difficult.
We?d settle in, and start anew. Jackson never understood how I could believe our lives were so stodgy. To him, it was a new and exciting opportunity. For me, it was the same repetitious bull****. But when our hands were bloodied in different ways, I was not the one to find new discoveries. I was the one who found faces to be blurred, names forgotten. My temporary companions became less of nights spent, and more moments passed in the dingy alleyways before I?d move on.
The numbers piled. The rumors spread. And we were on the move again. City to city. Town to town. Country to country.
Jackson stayed the same, every time. He never changed. To this day, I don?t think he ever has. Perhaps a little more Mad, more eccentric with his knowledge that may have driven him to insanity by now. But me? My actions had only charged my transformation into the monster I am now. It?s laughable now? How I thought I couldn?t become something worse. The blood on my hands back in the day, it was only just the beginning.