Anomalies & Curiosities by Cassandra L. Thompson

Author:Cassandra L. Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quill & Crow Publishing House

The opium den is a dark little cave filled with tasseled pillows and ornate curtains of deep scarlet, and Carron luxuriates in the gloom, manipulating the long pipe over the oil lamp and breathing deeply of the vapors that twirl out. He lounges back, eyelids fluttering, his head becoming a dreamy place where thoughts glop up together in one big colorful mess of saltwater taffy. He silently praises the poppy, and he suckles loyally at the teats of Mother Nature for the gift of this stress-dissolving bliss.

He had hoped to indulge in his vice alone, but Professor Moldovian finds him there and nestles close to him in the shadows, seeing an opportunity for two academics to cluck at each other like egocentric hens. Carron can barely see the man amidst the smoke and the fluttering light of the oil lamps, his face just a tiny quivering moon in the blackness, but heat bakes from Moldovian’s body, and it’s enough to irritate the surgeon. Carron wishes he’d get up and scurry off to his extracurricular affairs. The good professor is known to lap at brothel twat after he’s had his opium, but he seems intent to linger this time around, and he’s in the mood to provoke.

“This obsession with those slimy worms, Hubert. What can be gleaned from them? They’re becoming archaic. I’d warrant ten years from now, they’ll have no place in medicine at all.”

Carron scoffs, and if side-eyeing could kill a man, Moldovian would drop dead right there on the burnt carpet.

“You underestimate the leech, Professor. They are remarkable specimens. A living hermaphrodite that sups on blood, and can you imagine a more perfect parasite? I’ve often proposed they develop a relationship with the host they’re feeding from. Something symbiotic. And if that level of awareness exists in the leech, couldn’t some form of sentience be reached, even in the confines of dead tissue?”

“Preposterous. I can think of no animal lower on the totem pole. Praise the great elephants of the Orient, or even the apes, but I’ll give no deep scientific thought to those little blood-crazed gluttons.”

The professor chuckles before taking another inhalation from his pipe, and Carron sees a yellowing in the whites of his eyes. Jaundice. He sincerely hopes the man’s liver quits on him soon so that he can take his criticisms into a shallow grave.

“There are rumors that you’ve been hoarding the live ones, old boy. Doctors claim there’s a shortage in this borough, and they’ve been forced into using the man-made equivalent. I dare say those infernal instruments are more humane. I’ll take an artificial leech over a squiggling river worm if I ever find myself on your slab.”

He slaps Carron on the back, and the grimace on the surgeon’s face only deepens. The opium isn’t having its usual calming effect thanks to the naysayer and his babbling mouth.

“Take care with that loose talk. A rumor is a dangerous thing. Sometimes it grows teeth, and it might be prone to bite…” Carron glares at that oval of moon-face, and there’s terrible hardness in his eyes.

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