Hyde's Story V

Jekyll started stay to the house after that night, having learned that he could no longer control our body he started to fear that I would come out again, maybe even on a busy street. It wasn’t really his body that Jekyll couldn’t control, and I doubt he ever realized this, it was his thoughts. He found himself thinking my thoughts more and more and when he did he would become me. It was really his own fault but he couldn’t be bothered to take responsibility. Instead he started to drink more and more of that horrible potion to transform back into himself when he became me. We were prisoners in his house and neither of us dared to venture out into the public world.

We received visitors occasionally, especially Mr. Utterson who was Jekyll’s one remaining friend. Jekyll or I, depending on who was in charge of the body at the time would always turn him away without opening the door. Jekyll would have the servants leave our food, as well as ingredients for his experiments outside of the door. We were heading towards a problem together, the medicine that had once created me was running out and without it I would become the full time possessor of Jekyll’s body. At one time I would have enjoyed such a chance but now there was no life for me in a hostile world and Jekyll was my refuge.

It was because I grew in such control of our bodies that Jekyll finally thought of the way to control me; he simply had to threaten to kill himself. While I entertained thoughts of killing myself the thought of Jekyll doing us both away seemed too much like a continuation of the same old pattern to which I had much aversion.

Jekyll stopped using the potion except when he had to be himself when new chemistry ingredients showed up. He knew that he had to ration what he had, especially since from what I had seen through him the new batches of potion weren’t working. Some ingredient or other was subtly different and I watched as slowly he gave up hope. His stock of old ingredients continued to dwindle quickly and even though it spelled my own doom as well I found myself able to watch with detachment. So long as he didn’t head towards self destruction I would at least die in sole possessor of our body and that was some comfort.

While I was in the body I decided to take out my frustration with my entire existence on Jekyll’s belongings in our voluntary prison cell. I smashed his furniture, took the poker to the portrait of his father, and smashed bottles of wine on the wallpaper. In particular I targeted his books of pious nature. Jekyll was a man who couldn’t even be honest with himself when he was alone and had the habit of posing himself with religious texts when he was feeling particularly self righteous. It became my habit after I had worn myself out with destruction to sit by the fire and scrawl blasphemies in the margins of these tomes, not out of sacrilege, though as I have said I don’t believe in God, but because I looked at these books as symbols of the hypocrisy of my creator.

The day finally came; it was almost a relief for both of us I believe, when there was only enough potion for one more transformation. I mixed it for Jekyll and for the last time he took possession of what had once been his body. I watched as he sat down to write what I knew would be the testimony of his existence, and mine. I can hardly say that I felt that he had done me justice as I read what he was writing. He seemed to have completely forgotten that I could look out of his eyes as much as he could when I was in my body.

To be continued...

Hyde's Story IV

First off, before this post, I would like to announce that this is officially my 100th post. I just felt like I should mention that....well anyway.

The next few months Jekyll was even more sickening self righteous then he had been before. His hypocrisy, of which only I was aware, made him unbearable to even share a mind with sometimes. He went out of his way to be pleasant to his friends, to do good deeds, to donate money to charities; he was truly a model citizen. I was raving; I wanted to destroy this man by now for his ability to live a normal life when he had done the crime as much as I had. I was almost ready to throw away my own safety for this sake even, almost but not quite. I still had no wish to die by the hangman’s noose for a man like Jekyll.

Jekyll, at total peace with himself, tended to wander the night just as I had, but in the guise of a respectable man that he wore so well. He was sitting on a park bench, watching people pass by when I found his thoughts following more along the path that mine usually did. It was as if my brain was melting into his. He looked around and saw everyone as hypocrites, living their pretend public lives and as he grew as filled with contempt of humanity as I always was. With his thoughts going in this direction I was suddenly dragged out of my hiding spot in his body, I was now the one who was sitting on the park bench.

Remember by now I was a wanted man and this was therefore not a position that I liked at all. I no longer had my own home, and to return to Jekyll’s house would be too dangerous. I had to find a way to escape this public place and without making myself findable. It was Jekyll who actually provided me with the answer, a cheap hotel on the other side of town. Now was the time for us to work together, both of our necks were on the line.

The cab driver gave me an odd look and I was almost tempted to kill him, just so that he wouldn’t be able to report later when he had dropped off the strange man. He seemed to sense the fact that I was dangerous at this moment though because he didn’t say anything and didn’t even ask for fare. Well I must have looked odd at this moment. I am a much shorter man then Jekyll is and I was wearing his clothing.

Once I was installed in the safety of the hotel room I wrote two letters, one of them to a friend of Jekyll’s, the other one to Jekyll’s servant. Of course I wrote both of them in Jekyll’s hand writing rather then the one that he had given me. I knew that my life hung in the balance of those two notes and the stress was extreme for that whole next day. I didn’t emerge from my room until close to midnight, when I had arranged to meet with Jekyll’s friend, I even had my meals brought up to the room.

Jekyll’s friend had the cabinet contents I had asked him to bring waiting for me at his house. I mixed the ingredients that I had seen Jekyll mix so many times, he was whispering instructions to me so I knew I had made it right. I think that my hands were shaking while I mixed it, even though I knew it was right. A lot was riding on this. I was going to drink it when I realized that Jekyll’s friend was still watching me. I wasn’t created to be a considerate person but he had done me a favor so I thought that I owed him at least a small courtesy. I asked him if he was willing to see what was going to happen or if he didn’t think he would be better off not knowing, it was the least he could do. The fool of course allowed curiosity get the better of him and as it is already known he paid the price for it. When I heard that he was dead I have to admit that I thought it was poetic justice. Jekyll wasn’t pleased with me for giving us away to his friend, but there was never anything Jekyll could do to harm me, or at the time I thought that there wasn’t.

To be continued...

Hyde's Story III

I revel to think of how scared Jekyll became after this night. I was not brought out and given his body again for a month after that and he hid away my clothing and the medicine that created me, though he kept them. I shouldn’t have been happy to be trapped with no use of my body, but I was. In a way I was being an influence, he was no longer doing what ever he wanted, my existence was changing him.

Eventually he forgot his fear and I was brought from the closet again, about a month after I had transformed him as he slept. With time he began to lust after the deeds he had been able to do and forget the danger of becoming me. Again I was wandering the street doing things that Jekyll dreamed of in the deepest recesses of his mind.

It was on one of these midnight voyages of exploration through the darker parts of the city that I met the old man. He was a silver haired elder of respectable appearance who accosted me in the most polite fashion to ask for directions. I think that may have been what made me so angry actually, though by now it didn’t take a lot to make me angry. I had grown so used to people facing me with horror that to have a man address me with a look of nothing but benevolence for some reason insulted me. More then that but my frustration with my own existence had grown, and I was also feeding off of Jekyll’s growing evil side. It was a combination of these factors that caused me to suddenly lash out at the harmless and defenseless man.

By the time that I was done with the man and had fled the scene there was no doubt in my mind that he was dead. Once my walking stick had broken on him I had trampled him underfoot just like I had the little girl a year before. I could still feel the man’s bones crack under my feet. He was dead and as the gloating Jekyll in my mind told me I was a dead man if I was found by the police. I didn’t want to die a puppet of a man like Jekyll. If I was to die it would be at my own hands or of natural causes, this I had long since decided, it wouldn’t be at the hands of an executioner for being an abomination Jekyll had created for his amusement.

I continued to be a cowering fugitive in another man’s body after this incident. No longer was I able to wander at night as had become my habit, not without every policeman in the city looking for me. It quickly came to light that the man who I had killed was a man of public prominence which made my crime of more interest to the police then it would have been otherwise. It was in Jekyll’s interest as well as mine not to have me caught by the police. Not only was there the public shame if his involvement was brought to light with a trail, but my death by the hangman’s rope would be his death as well since we shared a body, though they were different shapes. No longer was that potion that he had consumed so often in the past brought out of its draw and mixed and again I was almost thankful. I watched the world through his eyes and waited to see what would come.

The next few months Jekyll was even more sickening self righteous then he had been before. His hypocrisy, of which only I was aware, made him unbearable to even share a mind with sometimes. He went out of his way to be pleasant to his friends, to do good deeds, to donate money to charities; he was truly a model citizen. I was raving; I wanted to destroy this man by now for his ability to live a normal life when he had done the crime as much as I had. I was almost ready to throw away my own safety for this sake even, almost but not quite. I still had no wish to die by the hangman’s noose for a man like Jekyll.

To be continued...

Hyde's Story II

As I said I had not been made to feel guilt and therefore I don’t think my expression changed through the whole ordeal. They shouted at me, I believe that my life was genuinely in danger from the girl’s family. The danger wasn’t only physical, the doctor and the man who had brought me back to the scene offered a different danger, police and the courts. When they threatened public outcry I could have cared less and yet I still felt fear, coming from deep inside of me, from my source, Jekyll. There was nothing that he feared but public exposure for what he truly was, a man who would create a monster like me.

Jekyll did share one concern though, neither of us wished to face prison and the courts. This unusual internal mutual agreement led me to seek some sort of accord with the doctor and the man who had captured me. Finally, this was my first experience with the power of money; I agreed to pay a ridiculous sum for the retention of my so called good name. As if I had a good name, I had no name at all except the one that Jekyll had seen fit to give me for his own convenience. Everything in my life was for his convenience, my name, my personality, my home, my positions, not one aspect of my life was for me.

This incident ended without anything truly bad happening, though Jekyll chaffed when I had him write the check paying the family of the little girl. This connected his name to this disreputable business, it had been for things such as this that I had been created but it couldn’t be avoided. After this business I was even granted my own bank account though Jekyll watched all of my doings, just as I watched his, and wouldn’t allow me the totally free use of the money he had deposited there. It seemed truly unfair that he should be given total freedom of his body while I should be a slave to his whims. He would sit back and moralize at me from my own mind while I exercised only those things that he had created me with from his own personality. That was the most sickening part of my existence, I had nothing redeemable about me, and he could mock me for it while I could do nothing to him.

I continued with the fake life, I mean to say that life its self was fake, I was living a sham of existence for Jekyll’s pleasure, for over a year without further incident after the business with the child. I was entering my own home, the one that Jekyll had bought for me, when I was accosted by a friend of Jekyll’s, a Mr. Utterson. I had seen the man, and heard his discussions, through Jekyll but this was the first time that I had ever come face to face with him. His face was filled with the repulsion that I had grown used to being on everyone’s faces when they spoke to me.

Our conversation was not of consequence, I found later that he believed me to be blackmailing Jekyll, but it was my first meeting with Utterson who would be important later. Even now, and I am in dire straights I find humor in the idea that I would blackmail Jekyll, he who controlled my life and wore me like a suit.

I brooded, unhappy with my lot. I was given a lot of time for introspection since Jekyll was usually in possession of our shared body. It irked me above all else that Jekyll should have so much control over me and I should have so little control over him. It wasn’t until about a month after I met Mr. Utterson that I made a step to gaining control.

Jekyll was asleep; this I believe was of some assistance to my purpose. While he was awake he tried to even control his thoughts to what society expected of him so I had no way to break through. When Jekyll was asleep however his mind tended to bring out more of his true personality and after some practice I finally managed to transform into my body while he was asleep. My mind was still the dormant one, Jekyll was still in control, but the ability to make the body mine was a start.

To be continued...

Hyde's Story

Hyde’s Full Statement of the Case

I was created to be evil, which was the full reason that I was given life, not through any honest way, but through strange science and alchemy. It was with this purpose that I have lived but now, in my last days of life, I wonder about my purpose. My creator, Jekyll, I refuse to give him the honor of his title doctor, was a fake of a man who I quickly lost all respect for. Who could blame me for my actions when my very personality was given to me by such a man? A man who thought nothing of doing great cruelty so long as it wasn’t his face doing it, a man who hid what he really was from the rest of the world, a man who pretended to be upright and moral for the sole reason of gaining respect from the unknowing populace.

I will not deny that I have done horrible things during my existence. How much of that was me, as Hyde, and how much of that was me as an avatar for Jekyll even I could not say. Even I have no way of saying how much control he had over my actions and I will not try to make myself blameless. I do not believe in God, God would not have allowed my creation, so I do not fear being punished by a higher authority for what I have done as Jekyll egged me on. I do have some morals though, and these bother me sometimes. Sometimes that I think that my morals are stronger then Jekyll’s assumed and shallow ones, Jekyll puts morals on as a front but feels not a pang to then drink his dreaded potion to release me.

I think the first time that I had self doubt was the horrible night that I did my first crime of violence against an innocent. I had done violent things in the past but never before against someone who was totally helpless. A part of this escalation was Jekyll in the back of my mind, my mind was usually filled with blind rage and Jekyll, the cause and creator of all of this anger, would sometimes drop hints into my mind about what I could do with that anger. I think it amused him to sit back and watch me sin while thinking himself blameless. It was in one of these moods of mindless rage that I found myself trampling a small girl underfoot. I couldn’t say what I was thinking, prior or during this event. Jekyll’s scorn for the world was sometimes the only thing that was brought to my mind and when that happened I would lose all thoughts and become pure rage.

I left the scene of my crime as quickly as I could, I couldn’t stand to see the girl writhe on the ground. I wasn’t able to absent myself for long though, a man who apparently had seen my horrible deed instantly chased after me and grabbed me by the collar. My irrational anger long since calmed I allowed myself to be taken without a fight back to where the girl lay. Jekyll was shouting in my mind to fight him, to destroy the man who was arrogant enough to grab me in such a way, but I resisted. I do think that something about the internal debate that was going on in my mind may have crept into my face though because I saw the man who had grabbed me shudder with horror. People often shudder when they see my misshapen body, but this was true fear, which is different then normal. The girl was now surrounded by her family and the doctor was seeing to her. I was not created to feel guilt but at that moment I think I felt my first pains of what would eventual become guilt, once it had time to fester and develop.

To be continued...

SPANISH TEST COMES FIRST

As the title suggests there will not be any new page posted today because I am far too busy studying for my Spanish test to write.

The City of Bells II

My companion, not bothering to hide his annoyance with me at my behavior, came to sit beside me. I broke off a piece of my pastry and handed it to him as a sort of silent apology. He took it but he still didn’t look happy with me. It didn’t matter, it was worth it, I was home.

I didn’t know anyone in the city anymore so we stopped in a hotel with a view of the river. Even after my companion had gone to sleep I sat at the window with all of the lights out, looking down at the city below me, and thinking. I think it was around two in the morning that I finally gave up on the idea of staying in the motel, even at this time of the night the city was calling me, and I couldn’t stand staying indoors.

Once I was out on the street I was left with the question of what to do at two in the morning. Even if a city like this one, with a lot of night life, things were starting to slow down by this time and the people who were out could be looked at with great suspicion. Even at this hour though there was the sound of bells, muffled with cloths, but still being wrung.

Since I didn’t feel like hanging out a bar, which was about the only thing still open at this time of night, or a convenience store, I found myself back in the park which was open at any time. There was no one here this time of night, not even people with shadier business had stuck around. I don’t think I slept much that night, propped on my park bench, though I may have drifted a couple of times in and out of consciousness. I know I was woken up by a police officer once, he thought I was homeless and I had to show him my papers before he would leave me alone. I explained to him that I hadn’t been able to sleep in my room and he gave me a look like I was crazy but walked away. It was almost dawn when I crept back into the motel room and slipped into my bed. I didn’t feel like explaining to my companion that I had been out all night in the park.

We had supper in an outdoor café that night, right next door to one of the old cathedrals. The bells rang evening mass while we were there and my companion flinched but I reveled in the sound. I reveled in everything, even how tired I felt after having stayed up all night. Something about my joy much have shown on my face because my companion gave me a strange look.

“How long to you mean to make me stay here. Remember you promised that after this we could go see where I was raised. After that we still have a program to write about travels across Europe on foot. We should probably leave tomorrow or the next day,” he told me. I nodded reluctantly, wishing I had known what I was saying when I had made those commitments. I hadn’t realized what going home was like before.

That night I left the motel room around two in the morning again, I just couldn’t stay inside knowing that this was my last night in the city. I wanted to see every aspect of the familiar scenes before I was forced to go, even if it was when no one in their right mind would be about. Tonight there were no bells, that was what I missed above all else, it was wrong that on my last night in the city there should be none of the bells that I loved so much. I even thought about pounding on the doors of a church and demanding bells to be rung but they would want a reason and I would probably be locked up as a lunatic if I tried to explain.

It was in this frame of mind, desperate for any bell at all, even the mournful funeral chimes, that I found myself once more in my place at the park. The policeman had already passed my by twice, looking at me suspiciously both times, that my eyes fell on the park’s bell tower. It was a tapering affair, and I had climbed mountains, I found myself climbing the tower without a second of thought. I found myself clutching the bell pull and before I could think at all I pulled with all of my might. The beauty of the bells filled my head. They were just for me, I how never expected to get married, and wouldn’t know the joys of hearing them for my funeral, had the feeling for the first time of the bells being for me alone. They filled my head and continued to chime out their melody even after the police had shown up and carried me off. They rang in my head as my companion bailed me out of jail, they rang me onto the plane, and I knew they would never be stopped. No matter how many other foolish promises I would make that would keep me from the city, those bells would be with me, and if they ever did stop, I made myself a foolish promise that I would keep just like all the other ones that I make. I would come back and do it again, the bells would not die.