Document Five

Impossible to test circulation theory on frogs. Not enough blood. Wrong species anyways. Have tried few tests, all fail or inconclusive. All fine, but released into fountain for observation. May live, may die. Uncertain. Would like to purchase a pig for test, but unruly, and uncertain how to kill or handle once dead. Very heavy, according to butcher whom asked. Many details on cuts and fat and bacon. Wanted to vomit. Smell of blood and meat. Terrible.

Steward’s Sister came. Told ran off with laundry woman. Said no address. Angry, so, must have believed. Left. Not ask any more questions. Children very scared. Would be scared for steward, if not already…

Have moved him upstairs now danger passed. Use as sort of coat rack and strange assistant. Can set to many different tasks if creative. Will spin handles for hours, or stand and hold as though made of wood. Cannot measure, mix, or any delicate task, but useful tool, if blunt. May keep a while yet, run more experiments, test range of mental function through long use. May see change in time.

Went down after sister left. Talked for long time. Lost track of time actually. Should have tracked it. Thought stopped screaming once or twice until removed baffle. Let scream a little while, thought might do good, not me but, no change. Baffled again before left, in case unexpected visitors again. If sister get suspicious of story, or ask police to track down.

Would like a dog or cat to test theory but what use? If circulation, can increase circulation after coagulation? Can preserve meat already rotten? No good. No good. Must find other cause. Must find other way return life. Brain is key, but how to enter brain without damaging. How to deliver stimulation without murder. Frogs easy, but animals? No higher function to begin with. Perhaps that is difference between. Man lives, while beasts are dead at all times. Certainly no difference for frogs, alive or dead. Ones in fountain fine, if not croak. Sit in sun all day and hop in rain.

That can scream for so long with no food or drink is incredible. Flesh truly remarkable. Impossible. Die. Impossible, if flesh alive still. Must try to get dogs or cats. Must try. Perhaps can de-coagulate with solution. Perhaps can begin heart again, or replace with pumps. Must try on other, larger, living things. More like human beings. More like subject.

You Would not like it.

Am sorry.

(Document has no date.)

A Note

Emily says I do not use enough words in our letters. Do not talk enough in person either, that I must practice if I am to change. So, must practice. I must practice. Words.

Today, the sun is shining. It is very bright, and the leaves are very green. There are frogs singing in the bog and-

I don’t know what to say about this place. It is home, but not really. Not since father died, and not since I met you. I do not love it here. It is a beautiful old home, filled with books and memories of mother and father and the servants when I was young, but now the servants are new, hired by my father and retained by myself because I have no real idea how to hire more. The steward manages all of those affairs and makes me feel like a guest in my own home, mine, since father died. He asks me whether I would like to fire the kitchen girl who disappeared while she was supposed to be at work. He seems to think it was a lover since he suggested that if she ever became pregnant we would be obliged to pay her a fee on her departure if we didn’t let her go now for negligence, but I didn’t know what to say, so I told him to do what he thought best, and haven’t heard anything more of the matter. If it was old Lushya I would have told him she deserved a day off, always looking the other way when I came to steal treats as a child, or letting me help her roll out the bread. Have no idea if steward has fired. Wouldn’t recognize girl if I saw her, let alone if did not.

I wouldn’t recognize the girl if I saw her. Let alone if I did not.

The steward seems like a good man though. His children visit every month, and I see him walking them around the place, pointing to things proud as though they were his own.

The sun is very bright. Can hear

I can hear

frogs chirping behind the woods where the bog runs up to the house.

I suppose I should learn to describe this place, if she is ever going to come live in it. It would make it feel more like a home, more like the place it is in my memories.

The stone angel beside my bench is smaller than I remember. He stands at the edge of the path into the woods, wings spread, sword held aloft. He was like a guardian when I was shorter than him, something to keep out the monsters that hid in those trees while I slept. Now he just looks like a bit of carved marble, blind eyes pointed towards the trees, wings too heavy to ever give him flight. He’s just a statue, a little taller than my waist, standing between the forest and the cultivated paths.

I wonder what you would see if you saw it. You’ve always had a more romantic streak than me. Would you still see the guardian I saw as a child, or the empty stone I see as an adult? Would see a statue of course. It is neither of those things. It reflects the sculptor if it reflects anything, the man who took the world of inanimate rock and shaped it according to his will, to his vision of the celestial heavens, no matter how unreal and immaterial they might be. It must be a wonderful thing to work with such inanimate material where such things are possible. Living tissue is so much more fickle. It has a mind of its own, and succumbs at the smallest opportunity to the impetus to decay.

I wish the summer would end.

Am so tired of the sunshine. Wish could be with you.

I wish.

Soon.