The Nothing Man

Friday - Nine of the Clock

The clouds were big, round, and full, like that great bon vivant on the throne. Rain was close—blood and pain were closer. Dorothea clutched her silk reticule and averted her eyes; undoubtedly finding the dank alley disagreeable—the circumstances: more so. I could tell she wanted to leave, but she lingered for me. I could not walk away; it was too auspicious a thing.

I removed my jacket, folded it, and handed it to my man: Erasmus. He protested wordlessly. “Just a gentlemanly exchange of blows, old bean,” I quipped. It would be nothing of the sort.

My opponent was as big as an ox with a head like a flag stone. I fingered the bone in my waistcoat pocket—a fingerbone, appropriately enough. Would its magic be enough?

Fifteen minutes past Nine

I swear to you, I could feel the rumble of chaise wheels on cobblestones. But how was it possible? I was dead!

Ten of the Clock

I have always been a shrewd man; a man of science; a Doctor, no less. I have also traveled abroad and seen things in the wild world that haunt my waking hours and rob me of sleep. There are darknened corners where the diabolical reigns and the good should abstain. It’s from one such hell-hole that I procured my most prized relic: the finger of Matthias Buchinger.

I gripped the thing tightly as I sat up on the plinth. Erasmus watched. There was a hint of rebuke on his grey, grizzled face. I vomited. My body shook uncontrollably and I felt the sensation of insects crawling through my veins. But soon, the discomfort and illness were replaced by something else. Something wonderful. “You see, old bean? Our experiment worked! I am alive! This is a gift!”

“Or a curse,” drawled my man as he poked at the knife-wound in my chest.

“Pish! Praise the bone of Buchinger!”

“I thought he was born without hands.”

“Ale-house gossip, old man. He simply traded them.”

“For what, precisely?”

“For the power to do this!” I said, as I jumped from the shrine to the temple’s stone floor.

“Then how is a finger left over?”

“The gods are mysterious. Perhaps, we were meant to find it, old boy.”

“For good or ill. And there is but one God, sir.”

“Of course. And it will be for good, Erasmus. We will use this gift to do good.”


Twelve of the Clock

When Dorothea regained consciousness, she seemed to wish she had not. I doted, fanned, and cooed, but it all seemed pointless. The woman wriggled and thrashed and I was forced to concede defeat.

Erasmus fetched the chaise and I left the bouquet with the staff in the withdrawing room. Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the hallway looking glass, I damn near passed out myself.

One of the Clock

A young girl screamed as I passed her on Curzon Street. She ran clear to Green Park before I caught up. I merely wanted to enquire as to her reaction. The reaction of passersby, however, was no mystery. I bore the brunt of many a cane, bag, and riding crop! I ran back to my flat with some haste.

Tuesday – Eleven of the Clock

I have been evicted from my home, shunned by my peers, and rejected by polite society. Even Erasmus has turned tail. Is my visage really so gruesome?

I am bereft.

A Day and Time, of Which, I Know Not

A poor woman gave me bread. She did not recoil. She did not exact violence. She fed my hollow cheeks and stroked my alabaster brow.

My fear has dwindled. In its place—rage festers like a plague of sewer rats. I hunger not for blood, nor meat, nor vegetation. My appetite is for an anarchic uprising of the kind most agreeable to my reanimated heart. The upper echelons have made me outcast, whilst their role model gorges himself on the scant fat of the working class.

The finger speaks its black speech to me and it points toward reprisal.

Some Weeks Later

The eerie quiet is disturbed. Blackened hands pierce the Earth as the burnt dead spring to life. The powerful relic—the finger of a handless magician—buried by me, like a seed in the dirt, now grows me an army. The corpses of Waterloo rise and fall-in: assembling for battle. We will march on the overstuffed monarch. Take the land for our own. I am outcast no more. All goodness has left.

I was a shrewd man for a time. A Doctor, no less. A man of something or other. Now I am nothing. Now I am free. God save the king.