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DR. FURBISHER
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Dr. Furbisher, Ph. D. Oxon, was in his study, preparing a lecture ON “MANKIND'S SUCCESS OR FAILURE". After several tries, he gave up, and switched on the TV. A horror film appeared on the screen. He watched fascinated. A moonlit night. A graveyard. An icy mist snakes around the tombstones. A man is digging. He drags a corpse from a grave and slowly carts it back to Frankenstein's laboratory. Taking an arm from one body, a leg from another, limb by limb Frankenstein constructs a man. He stares expectantly as lightning crackles round the operating table. The creature stirs. Frankenstein staggers back from the marble slab. “What have I done!” He chokes “This is not a human, This is an abomination!” The film finished. Dr. Furbisher was perplexed. He threw his essay into his chimney dissatisfied. Suddenly, smiling, he clapped his hands and sitting in an armchair, he scribbled a few lines. ”My dear friends, these are my questions. Am I, are you, are we all Frankensteins? Let us dig into the graves of our minds and see. From our living universe we continually churn out monsters. We tirelessly cleave legs from here, cut out organs from there. We lovingly stitch them together only to produce zombies and living horror. From scraps of fact we create fractured theories. From cracked models we construct broken universes and cold obscurity. From an infinite mosaic of life, we generate a world of dark chaos. Are we now: Deaf to the music of life? Dead to the feeling of life?. Blind to reality?
After a brandy, his eyes became heavy, and Dr. Furbisher drifted into restless sleep. As he slept, dismembered images flashed through in his mind.
A cobble street, boots echoing on wet flagstones, He is being followed. Furbisher’s steps quicken as he is swallowed by darkness and swirling mist of Victorian London. The blind alley is fetid; rats scurry, He turns to go back but a shadow comes out of the mist. He cringes backwards and falls heavily “What do you want” he asks. “You dropped this sir, your watch and chain” The old watch ticked loudly in the silence “Thank you sir” he muttered, “It was my wife’s gift” But Furbisher was alone. He awoke. His old clock was chiming He turned, his eyes sad. “She loved that clock” “But I no longer hear its music nor do I remember the beat of her heart” He slept no more that night.
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