Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Transcriptions Automatiques

CYLINDER 34

(The patient settles himself into the chair. This appears to take some time. Sounds of unspecified discomfort can be heard)

Professordoktor Nyfenfork*: Take your time.

The Patient: This isn't my room.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: In your own time, tell me where you think you are.

The Patient: You know very well where I think I am. Rather, where I know I am.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: I would just appreciate your telling me again. We have plenty of time.

(There is no immediate answer from the Patient. Then what sounds like scratching can be heard)

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: Are you uncomfortable? Have I come at an inopportune time?

The Patient: The spines on my arm hurt.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: How long has this been the case?

The Patient: Let me have my calendar back, and I'll hazard a guess.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: In due course.

The Patient: My watch, then.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: I'm not sure it would even fit around that wrist of yours anymore.

The Patient: Then just hold it up where I can see it. I have eyes, don't I?

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: Yes you do. An embarrassment of eyes. I'll need your permission to remove one. For investigative purposes.

The Patient: You've never asked my permission before.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: Someone signed those consent chits.

The Patient: Well it wasn't me.

Professordoktor Nyfenfork: Please. Do not waste my time.

(Here the exchange ends. It may continue on another of the many as yet uncatalogued cylinders found in the Professordoktor's cabin aboard the Hindenburg II. Notification of such discovery to follow at such time when and if etc.)

*Professordoktor HJ Nyfenfork (dates unknown) was the third of the four Registrars at Saint Feasance's RSF Hospital, succeeding Major JH Cornelius and Lady Otteline Shanks, and preceding Sir Oliver Haddo (HOGD). In the interests of clarity, no attempt has been made to reproduce the Professordoktor's disctinctive accent in the above transcription.

Monday, November 24, 2008

In the vile train station of the heart

All we were trained to do was dismantle things, of course. So in the absence of any other instructions I took the bed apart, and then the parts of the bed apart, and then the parts themselves. The question now is how to store them. I have no tags to tag the parts, nor waterproof pencil with which to mark details on the tags. No paper at all. I'm concerned of course as to what may or may not be possible if I'm called upon to put the bed back together again at short notice. And, apart from the fact that I have learned nothing and recorded absolutely nothing from the exercise, what if- even if I do manage to reassemble it more or less soundly- a girl, for instance, jumps upon it and is injured?

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Blast from The Un


Somebody has been writing my diary again. I could quite easily make this impossible for them (I could better conceal the book, or destroy it) but then how would I discover how this sentence ends? Answer me that, my clever-lad-who-lives-in-some-but-not-all-mirrors!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Put Your Message In A Candle And Light It

Just one little bottle of oxygen left, boys. Down to stubs of pencils. Rattled around the galley looking for crusts and found a few. Stale. Nice and crunchy, though. And while crunching, this thought: How did a rocket this size get inside the hospital? Without breaking any windows, I mean. And am I to trust the information that we are inside the hospital, on the third floor, in a largish room formerly used for dancing? Dancing by who? To what music? If I could hear the music I could hazard a guess at the year.

And the empty space-suits, clipped and closed and helmets on, laid out on the acceleration couches as if their owners were still inside them. They're not, though. There's nobody inside any of these space-suits.