The Two Faces of Temperance

by Ichabod Temperance

  “Yes, … Ma’am.”

  “Isn’t it cute how their costumes and movements combine to a point you almost cannot tell one person from another?”

  “... Yes, … mum...”

  Thoughts are swirling.

  Losing focus.

  Audible hallucinations intrude.

  Looking at you,

  is looking at me.

  Looking at us,

  means looking at we.

  Am I just me?

  Or am I all you?

  No mess and no fuss.

  When it’s just me

  and not you.

  “What are you doing, Meess Plumtartt?”

  “I am removing my glove.”

  “Hrrm?”

  “I wish to hold your hand without the intervening material, eh, intervening.”

  “Errr...”

  “I say, you do not sound well at all, Mr. Temperance. I suggest we retire after the next act. Ah, I see. A ‘bit of the old soft shoe’, as the old folks say, eh hem? Yes, the theater grows quiet so that we may all hear the scratchy dance steps of shoe leather on sandy stage planks.”

  Skitch. Skitch-skatch.

  Skitch. Skitch-skatchity, skatchity.

  Skitch. Skitch-skatch.

  Skitch. Skitch-skatchity, skatchity.

  The dan-cing man.

  Is spea-king to me.

  He is spea-king to me,

  in dance.

  His shoes say:

  His shoes say:

  Run. A-way.

  Run. Don’t delay Don’t delay.

  Can’t. Escape.

  Me. I’m inside. I’m inside.

  Too. Late now.

  Here. I’ve arrived! I’ve arrived!

  One. Becomes two.

  Life! I’m alive! I’m alive!

  “Are you well, Mr. Temperance?”

  “... Yeth, … murm… “

  “My word, your hands are trembling, Mr. Temperance. And if I am not mistaken, your palms are filling in with a thick coarse hair, and your nails are lengthening at an alarming rate!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Mr. Temperance, come back!”

  “Eek!” “No spectators on stage!” “Security!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  Knocking the buffoons on stage aside I am entrapped by a tangle of vertical ropes.

  The cloth vines manipulate the tapestries of this theater’s false face. A strong rip of my claws drops the heavy material on my pursuers.

  Frantic screams and running people surround me!

  I must escape!

  There is a door that leads outside.

  Here, I have refuge in this alley.

  I am transformed into something more than human. My teeth are extended. My tongue is swollen. The bones of my face are distorted.

  I am stronger.

  I am more agile.

  I am a threat to this sub-species. They fear me, as well they should. With that fear shall come a desire to destroy me.

  I must continue my flight.

  I shall gain camouflage.

  ~ * * * ~

  “Splendid night to take in the opera, eh Lovey?”

  “Oh yes, Dovey. There is hardly ever another opportunity for you to wear your high-collared, black silk evening cape with blood red lining.”

  “Look there, Lovey, down that cold, fog-enshrouded, cobble lane. Is that a gorilla of some sort, shambling towards us beneath the gas-lamps’ lonely glow?”

  “Why yes, Dovey, the creature does appear most apelike. That is, bent over, lurching along in a sideways, half gallop. That sort of business, don’t you know.”

  “I say, Lovey, the beast maintains an outrageous pace does it not? It overtakes us with frightening speed.”

  “Hello, what’s this? Just as the monster is prepared to mow us down, like so many bowling pins, he radically changes his assault pattern to scamper up a handy tree.”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  Get the male’s jacket.

  Get the male’s jacket.

  Get the male’s jacket.

  “Oh, I say, how rude. Let go of Dovey’s cloak!”

  Get the male’s jacket.

  Get the male’s jacket.

  Get the male’s jacket.

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Get this horrid beast off of me!”

  “You nasty, nasty ape! You are a bad monkey! Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Jacket, jacket, jacket!”

  “All right, your name is Jackie, but what do you want of us?”

  “Blast it, Lovey, the creature obviously wanted my cloak, for as soon as he wrenched it from me he was off like a shot.”

  “That’s not all, Dovey, for I now see that the hairy little bandit also made off with your tall, silk, top hat.”

  “My hat!?! Blast you, you damned dirty ape!”

  ~ * * * ~

  Words are spoken to me.

  Images come to mind.

  Ideas come to mind.

  Words, words, words.

  Pretty words.~

  ‘Healthy Helen’s Hippodrome of Hefty Heroines’

  ‘Penelope’s Perpetual Parade of Pleasing Playthings’

  ‘Barbarella’s Boudoir of Bounty and Joy’

  Females. Women. Girls.

  Females. Women. Girls.

  Females. Women. Girls.

  Where am I?

  I see a street sign.

  Whitechapel.

  I see a female.

  She is alone, standing out on the street.

  I must not frighten her away.

  “Bleh.”

  “‘Bleh’, to you too, honey. What’s your name, handsome? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s George, right?”

  “Bleh, bleh, bleh.”

  “It’s not George, then?”

  My teeth are grown enormous.

  My tongue is swollen to such a state as to make communication difficult. I will spit and indicate a door so that she will know I want to get off the street.~

  “Huh-wock. Door!”

  “Is that your name, little pudge?”

  “Huh-wock. Door!”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re a doctor! I should have known by the fancy cape and top hat! Okay, Doctor what, then?”

  “Mnk, mnk, mnk, Ick, Ick, Ickle...”

  “Come again, Dearie?”

  “Ick, Ick, Ickle...”

  “Doctor Ickle, is it? Why, that’s good enough for me, love. Ha, ha, I’m always ready to play doctor, if the money’s roight. There will need to be some serious monetary transactions involved, seeing’s how you’re so, forgive me, I don’t mean no disrespect, bloody ugly. Funny how you’ve got more hair on your cheekbones, than your chin. I can barely see your piercing black eyes from beneath the eyebrow forest above. Nor do I fancy your constant princing and prancing back and forth, like some camper compulsive nocturnal jester.”

  This female, female, female.

  I want to touch this woman, woman, woman.

  I want this girl, girl, girl.

  “’ey! Keep your hands to yourself until Oye sees your money! Eek! Those hands! They have claws! Stay away, please, no, don’t hurt me! No, no, no, stop trying to grab me!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Eek! You are a terrible monster! Your claws are caught in my dress! Stop ripping at my clothes!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “You have stripped me of my dress!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Ugh! What horrible breath! Help! Help!”

  “Hey, who’s calling for help?”

  “It’s Chastity! Chastity is being attacked!”

  “Come on, girls, let’s get him!”

  “Oh, what a finely dressed but horrid little creature!”

  “He lurches too fast for me to catch him!”

  “He ran down that alley.”

  “There is a high fence on that alley. We’ve got him trapped, girls.”

  “So, you think you can work over a Whitechapel gi
rl, eh? It’ll be us giving you the works, mister.”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Eek! What a horrible monster!”

  “Not the ugliest trick Oye’ve seen tonoight.”

  “Aye.”

  “But not the prettiest either.”

  “It’s blokes like him that encourage my carrying of a blade, for personal protection.”

  “Aye, me too, that’s why I have me knife.”

  “Dagger.”

  “Razor.”

  “Ice pick.”

  “Scissors.”

  “Roight. Okay, we’ve got us a pretty good sized mob of ruthless prostitutes at hand, each armed with an imaginative and comfortable devoice to sloice, stick or stab. Let’s all rush him at once. Get him, girls!”

  “Bleh-Rargh!”

  “Eek! The blighter jumped over the fence!”

  “That was a twenty foot leap!”

  “I hear him on the other side, scampering away. He’s gone!”

  ~ * * * ~

  Blast it, where is that man?

  “Mr. Temperance! I say, where are you?”

  The further I stray from the theater, the more I despair of finding my Ichabod. These lonely cobbled streets echo with my frantic footfalls.

  What on Earth can be occurring with Ichabod? He is certainly not himself. I cannot for the life of me imagine his having a part in destroying London Bridge, but his behaviour and soiled suit indicate otherwise.

  His work at the Cheapside studio must be associated with these transformative outbursts. Despite his assurances otherwise, I am sure Professor Diddlefudde is...

  Hello, what’s this? I perceive a shadowy figure, surreptitiously flitting from one darkened doorway to another behind me. This is a lonely stretch of road. There is still enough distance between us that I have a chance of gaining the security of a public house before this midnight assassin takes me in his grasp.

  Nonsense. This would be an unforgivable waste of valuable intelligence.

  “Yoo, hoo, I say, hello there my nocturnal companion. There is no need to skulk about, for I am fully aware of your attempted stealthy observation and clandestine pursuit. Please come forth that we may converse as civilized peoples, eh hem?”

  “Eh, no, missus, you see, I saw where you dropped an ear-ring. I was just trying to return it, see?”

  “Commendable, but improbable.”

  “No, really, here it is Miss Plumtartt.”

  “Ah, one sees. You know my name, eh? Very well, then, my suspicions appear proven valid. My conjecture is that you are a midnight murderer; hitman for hire; solicited slayer. In short, my commissioned Kendleworth killer, you are an unscrupulous assassin and I your target of assignation.”

  “You’re a smart cookie, Miss Plumtartt. I admire you. Here, I’d like to shake your hand.”

  “Yes, quite, and I’d like to take that dagger you hide behind your back and stick it... woah! I say, you are devilishly fast with that blade, Mr.?...”

  “Don’t you worry about my name none, you won’t have long to remember it. Yah! Ee-yaw! Yah!”

  “Dear me, and here I thought you were a professional. You’ll never get me with those wild slashes, dear fellow. You must learn to enjoin a few stabbing thrusts on occasion as well. That’s it! Hah! Just so, for now I am able to catch and trap your weapon whilst simultaneously forcing you to drop the knife as I twist the excruciatingly painful wrist manipulation into a modified Chinese Puzzle Lock that I just invented.”

  “Yarrr!”

  “Now then, my mollified mugger, who sent you?”

  “Belay your battery, lass, I heave to! You’re breaking my arm!”

  “I demand to know the name of your employ-Oh!”

  “Got ye’!”

  “Oh, I say, I wasn’t prepared for that spring-loaded dagger up your sleeve. Though enough to gain freedom from my grip, that unworthy strike will not be enough to do one such as I.”

  “Yeah, I just grazed you, that time, Missy. This time will be for keeps.”

  “I daresay you’ll spend time in a keep.”

  “Yah! Ee-yaw! Yah! Stand still, will you? You’re just making this harder on your...gulk!”

  “I say, my old ‘Gung Foo’ training asserts itself, of itself, eh hem? I trust that the ‘Blooming Lilly’ spin kick to your gaping gorm was to your liking, eh hem?”

  “Die, you horrible woman! Yah!”

  “And with this last blow I am able to throw my would-be executioner over my shoulder whilst securing a safe ‘Monkey Bar’ arm lock.”

  “Ow-wow-wow-wow-ow! Arr! I surrender! I strike me colours!”

  “Be warned, my not-so-good man, this is my final entreaty. Who has sent you on this errand of eradication?”

  “Ow! Let me go!”

  “Names! Tell...”

  ~phssst!~

  “Oh!”~cough~“Oh, dear!”~cough~ “I say, I am engulfed in a choking, blinding, ball of smoke. These noxious fumes forced upon me are an unmanly maneuver.”~cough,cough~ “Oh, drat, my prisoner has escaped!”

  “Hello, what’s this? My assassau’tour has dropped something. It must have occurred when I sent him flying with my Gung Foo ‘Elephant on a See-Saw’ maneuver. It is a small, dark leather bag. I think this item is very old. It is a tobacco pouch. The contents confirm this. This is not a domestic variety of leaf. By the smell, I place this product as coming from the Gulf of Mexico region. This suspicion is confirmed by the cut of the leather and sewing style. I am relatively confident this is a style often associated with the Carri-bean. I believe the artwork was added later. I think this done in the Portuguese style of engraving. Ah, and now I detect a pair of initials, ‘A.S.’ Well, Mr. ‘A.S.’, This clue, when coupled with my impression of your speech patterns make me think you are a rogue man of the sea. Very well, matey, until we meet again. At such time, however, I go now to inspect and dress the wound you have inflicted. I shall not be caught unprepared again.”

  Chapter Three.

  Rough Passage.

  The Non-Existent London Sun:

  MONSTER

  STALKS

  WHITECHAPEL!

  Evil incarnate stalks the streets of a snoozing London! Primordial horrors terrorize our city streets. Innocent waif, Chastity Nettlenethers, caught herself out on the east London Streets of Whitechapel alone. A girl her age should know not to go about unescorted, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, she was rudely accosted! Worst of all, though a brutish creature, this man is of upper society, and of the Professional classes: a Doctor, no less. Doctor Ickle! It is a frightful thing when the trained surgeon turns his knowledge of human anatomy against those that he is sworn to heal. What macabre fetish drives this example of man’s inhumanity? The cruel creature callously tore at Miss Nettlenethers’ wardrobe, leaving the child nearly naked in the street. It was when she was close enough to smell his terrible breath that she saw his terrible claws and frightful fangs! With coarse hair growing from odd places on his face and hands, Dr. Ickle is a real life monster! The hideous brute wishes to feast on the flesh of our city’s most innocent victims!

  The Global Xenophobe’s Gazette:

  APEMAN

  ASSAULTS

  ARISTOCRATS

  The most respectable of couples, Dover and Olivia Primrose, were returning home after a night at the opera, when a primordial horror arose from London's urban savannas. Mrs. Primrose is quoted:

  “I say, that hunched and hairy man-ape flung its ungainly body from Elm to Oak until falling upon my poor Dovey’s head. The savage brutally tore at my husband’s throat with simian fury and stripped him of his silken belongings. I beseech this city to mount an urban safari to hunt down this wild animal. Why on Earth would this savage wish to strip my Dovey of his belongings? That insensitive beast should leave the aristocracy to itself, and concern itself with those closer in line to its breeding, such as the East Enders. They certainly have a surplus of population and it might alleviate the squalor to reduce their swelling ranks. As to
the horror that attacked us, it identified itself in a manner of speaking, utilizing a series of guttural grunts. I tell you, it referred to itself in a man’s name; Jackie. Once the fiend had stripped Dovey of his top hat and opera cape, he bounded away as if he had coiled springs beneath his heels. I insist that Jackie the Spring-Heeled Stripper be stopped!

  The Disinterested Snob:

  SECOND

  SUSPICIOUS

  STABBING

  Gifted hydraulic engineer, Hans Moen, was found on a Southbank park bench early this morning. The victim is thought to have sat there unnoticed for some time. Scotland Yard detective Nichodimus Cobblechunk confirms that the conditions are very much like those of a murder near Westminster, just yesterday, when the victim of a fatal stabbing was found sitting on a city bench, just outside an underground rail entrance.

  “Gee, whiz, Spike, ain’t you got any good news for me? I’ve got a terrible headache. I ain’t had me a good night’s rest of late.”

  “Something good, eh? Let me see... Why, today’s blood pudding day at debtor’s house. How’s that? You can’t say no to a free meal! Ummm, oh, yeah, I’ve got a good tip on a cock fight being run out back, tonight. No? No bloodsports?Oh, I’ve got it. I will tell you a heart-warming human interest story to rejuvenate your faith in humanity.”

  “Gee, thanks, Spike, that sounds like just the thing I need to hear.”

  “It’s a very near and dear story to me, Ichabub. My very own neighbour is a true saint she is. Amelia Dire. That woman is a one-person charity orphanage. People from all over this city, unable to support a family, give their babies, and a sizable dowry, to Mrs. Dire.”

  “That’s swell, Spike.”

  “Yeah, Icky, she takes in dozens and dozens of little babies. One after another, baby, baby, baby.”

  “Is it noisy or irritating to be so close to all that?”

  “Hunh, that’s funny, Ichabod. After all the babies I’ve seen going in, you’d think there would be more kiddies around everywhere, but it’s as if the babies come in and then just disappear.”

  “That’s sweet. Oh, there’s Miss Plumtartt, walking into the hotel restaurant. I better go fetch her these papers. See you later, Spike.”

  “Mr. Temperance! Eh hem, eh, there you are.”

  “Are you all right, Ma’am? You look as if you have a stitch in your side.”

  “No, but I could probably use one.”

  “Hunh?”

  “Never mind. I want an explanation for your unscheduled departure from my company last night.”