Bedtime Reading

It was inevitable that before long I would start collecting again. After all, books are so

cumbersome and, as I slowly came to realise, once the months of my hobby drifted inevitably into

years, are essentially useless if one does not actually read the things. By now of course, I had all

the first editions worth possessing, an autographed edition of 'The Collector' by John Fowles,

which as a matter of interest cost me two and a half thousand pounds at auction last year, 'First

Love, Last Rites' by Ian McEwan, a more recently acquired possession costing considerably less,

and not much to my literary taste, truth be told, but never mind, and even amongst my collection

or early manuscripts, a dated copy, 1826, of 'Tales Of Mystery And Imagination' by Edgar Allan

Poe. Of course I cannot be quite candid with you in how I obtained that book, as it as, after all,

without price, but then, I am quite rich, and thus these things can be easily arranged. Besides,

Grogan is such an excellent butler at times. However, enough digression. By now my shelves
were rapidly filling and my interest inversely rapidly diminishing, and it behoved me to find

another diversion with which to occupy my mind. I instinctively realised that my new found

hobby should require the use of my hands, having recognised that the profits of the mind,

excelling in as I have these past few years, needed now an equal and opposite physical engagement.

What better way to discover a hobby to exercise the somewhat latent powers of my digital

facilities than to browse in my local bookshop? How appropriate and convenient then that one

long dull afternoon, as I wandered through said bookshop, now bored and irritated by the pointless

searching for an unpossessed original manuscript I, having adjusted my monocle with a mild

irritation for the umpteenth time, discovered a dusty, dank, rather mildewed copy of, ah .. but with

what words can I describe my elation? that sense of discovery, that sensation of new avenues

opening up before one's eyes? Perhaps it was the greyscale effect of the plates that first attracted

my glance, that made me select it from amongst the thousand of tomes, tracts, volumes, works,

that lay herded, hurled, massed, lumped, dumped or merely thrown together, and yet it was still

surely insignificant - except for the rather faint colours, the pale blues, the faded reds, or was it

perhaps the thick, shiny sheets upon which the colours were printed which drew my attention, to

implore me to gaze lovingly upon and within its covers. My experience in these matters, my

knowledge of types of papers, the type on the paper, the texture, the consummate feel of the work,

all these enabled me to date the work with considerable accuracy. It was almost an inconvenience

to have to check my deductions, by having to flick through the sheets in order to find the publishers.

But who was this John William Parker to publish this Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical ?

Ah, but am I not, as I recall the subsequent richness of my work, eternally grateful that I did so?

For to have revealed before me, as they passed rapidly before my eyes, the inner recesses of the

human frame, the inner construction, was an experience without earlier parallel in my life. Not

even the early editions of Conan Doyle's, after they came into my possession following a mild and

not entirely financial struggle, precipitated the frisson that ran through my spine that late afternoon.

I fondled the book, stroked it, caressed the leaves, traced the colours, imagined or otherwise,
with tingling fingers, as I followed the veins and arteries and their smaller related capillaries along

their minute paths.

I felt, and I assure you that am I not prone to flights of fancy, as if I was nursing the tome

back into a useful life. I walked across to the cash desk and paid an absurdly small amount for this

veritable treasure of the human condition. I quickly hurried home lest my prize be snatched by

fate away from me, and retired to my library to peruse the contents at my leisure. How excited

I felt! that my life had been so totally transformed within the space of a few minutes and thrust

into a totally new direction, as yet unknown and unexplored.

What wonders awaited me (I wondered), as and when I chose to delve into this new hobby.

But first, I quickly realised, as fragments of rotten cardboard and decayed leather fell away

to the floor, this book needed cleaning. Indoors I prepared the necessary preservatives, dusted the

jacket, removed with a razor blade the crushed spider on page 153, then carefully covered the

spine with a pristine leather jacket. I called Grogan and instructed him to serve supper in the

library that evening. Such was my rapture of the vision I held between my hands that even Grogan,

yes even Grogan I now inspected with a revelatory interest. It seemed inconceivable that within

the hunched, haggard body of the man who had served me faithfully for the last twenty odd years,

that such an ancient decrepit body could harvest such an array of muscles, bones, and other

superfluous fibres, albeit in this particular case perhaps shrivelled and decayed with the passage

of time. I repeatedly reassured myself; this is what the book informed me. I turned to the flyleaf

and looked at the introductory notes. I wished to savour everything about my recent discovery,

to totally soak up the experience, as it were; its date, its history, its authors, but of course not least

the colours, those printed, primary colours that had first attracted my gaze in the dusky afternoon

earlier that day. I stroked the cover again, carefully, lovingly, but surreptitiously at first, as Grogan

caught the gleam in my eye. But, my confidence quickly growing I turned the pages now openly,

caressing the revealed bodies, the souls laid bare; the feeling was wonderful, wonderful. The weeks

of euphoria stretched into months. Perhaps Grogan raised an eyebrow as to my sanity, if not vanity,
when I instructed him to burn my priceless thousands of books in a massive bonfire in the grounds,

but perhaps not - naturally I was too engrossed in my own particular preparations to notice. But

Grogan is a good man, a trifle deaf perhaps, tottering somewhat, especially after carting 33

wheelbarrows full of the now defunct volumes into the grounds. He has always obeyed totally my

wishes without question or quibble: you need a man like this. We stood and watched the blaze lick

the heavens. I felt a sense of relief, and of release, and now an expectation for future knowledge

to be acquired relentlessly, but as yet fruitlessly. At least, I now hopefully conjectured, that this

all would change. I instructed Grogan to bring to the castle a copy of the Lancelet, filched from

the local library. Then, having scanned the advertisements, he arranged the purchase of the

necessary surgical instruments, the additional chemical preservatives required, and telephoned

a company for the delivery of a large number of variously sized glass jars. He even designed a

contraption upon which to display my specimens. I hadn't realised he had suppressed such an

artistic, constructive talent. He informed the builders, a small workshop specialising in orthopaedic

devices, situated near Lewes, that it was for demonstration purposes. Which in a way it was, I

suppose. Grogan even arranged the wording of the advertisement, placed in a local newsagent,

and surprisingly elegantly written - almost worthy of myself I thought. And it had the desired

effect over the next month or so; various types of people, young and old, men and women, came

to be interviewed for a spurious, fictitious post in the mansion. Grogan showed them into the

library, now inappropriately named, as the shelves lay temporarily empty. And, after a proper

glass of sherry, an offer not made with any altruistic intent, but to enable me to able to size up,

as it were, what was on offer, I led them on what was supposed to be a conducted tour of the

rooms. Naturally I led them to what was to become the cold room first.

But of what interest are veins and arteries? - they are tediously difficult to remove, difficult

to store, and they lack that delicious colouring with which Gray's Anatomy depicts their coursing

paths. But how can I complain that after my initial disappointment I became ... ecstatic, sensing a

more deeper elation as I discovered larger, more tangible examples of collectable matter, hidden
dormant within and under the skin. Beauty is not skin deep runs the adage .. ah, and how true that

aphorism has become. For, as I cut through the surface layers, with due caution of course, and

measured, weighed, labelled and compared the newly discovered, uncovered muscles, I realised

how beautiful the human form is; almost perfectly symmetrical, functional and balanced. But

how can words describe my feelings? Even after all my years of reading and studying, it is a futile

task to try to explain; language could not, and cannot, even now, quantify or qualify my feelings.

The sensations of touch, the pleasures of the flesh, as it were, all these were new to me, fresh,

novel, alien and exciting. And then, having taken the human machine apart, examined these

pistons of the body, then weighed the quantity of accessible, to me, muscle in each body, it was

time to apply my powers of analysis: I found first the co-relation of muscular weight between the

bodies was remarkably constant; perhaps 40 per cent or so of the total mass. Naturally I had to

slice away the extraneous fatty tissue from the hips of women, and then remove the breasts by

severing the pectoral muscles before I could take this measurement. But these superfluous deposits

were not wasted; Grogan placed these residues in large jars besides the others. I dare say in time to

come I will examine these corpulent substances in more detail, with a closer analysis. But as you

can appreciate as yet, the vast majority of my time is taken up with cataloguing the 500 or so odd

muscles available to me (the other 139 are rather inaccessible to my untrained fingers at present).

But to express to you my pleasure, my happiness, have I not already failed there? As I sit in

my library surrounded by shelves now laden with jars bearing, say any selected choice of muscle,

perhaps a little bit further down a shelf, a lower layer corresponding to a lower part of the anatomy,

a rather taut of example of Tension Facie Latia, but then that specimen was rather elderly.

Occasionally Grogan shuffles in, and upon my bidding selects a muscle from a shelf and affixes,

say, a tender Gastrinomiuos to the steel skeleton acquired from Lewes. It goes without saying

that the muscles are preserved in a chemical substance that prevents their decaying or rotting,

ensuring my collection remains in a pristine condition. Naturally I had doubts about Grogan

attracting attention to the castle by disposing of the remains that have so far escaped classification
to the incinerator ... but we initially had no callers when the earlier bonfires were blazing. But we

did this time. A young policewoman called recently, with just a passing enquiry about the number

of people who seemed to leaving the local vicinity. There was of course no obvious connection

with us. She admired my collection, but, as she turned away, I noticed what a fine example of

Gluttious Maximus she possessed; taut, pert, but still supple and relaxed: just so. I nodded to

Grogan waiting in the hallway, and he offered to show her out via the cold room. I could see the

young lady didn't understand his mumbling but followed him anyway. Perhaps out of curiosity I

suppose. Curiosity killed the cat, I believe they say. After I held the dismembered muscle in my

hand I carefully placed it in a large jar Grogan was carefully balancing upon his knee. It is after

all the bulkiest muscle. I could not but then notice how prominent the protruding Illium was.

I touched the rather stained bone gently and, as I far as I was able, began to caress it.

Perhaps, when my work on the classification of muscles is finished, it will another field to lovingly

explore.

Perhaps.