Quote of the Day: Jonathan Howard

THE QUOTE

From "Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day" by Jonathan L. Howard

Johannes Cabal and the Blustery Day

 

Experiment 472 was a failure. The worst sort of failure. The sort of failure that comes in a compact little bundle and hides in the dark corners of one's laboratory, patiently awaiting an opportunity to leap out and sever any major blood vessels it might find in one's neck. The sort of failure that seven crushing blows from a retort stand barely slows down. The sort of failure that is chased out onto the attic landing, whips between the banister railings, plummets three stories down the stairwell and yet need pause only a moment to recover its wits before darting off again.

 

   It never got that moment. A cheap plaster bust of Napoleon Bonaparte followed it down from the attic landing, fell the three stories accelerating all the way and

dashed the failure into failure pate upon the instant of impact.

 

   Johannes Cabal -- a necromancer of some little infamy -- leaned over the bannister railing from which he'd dropped the bust and examined the effect of cheap statuary on reanimated flesh. It told him nothing new; he expected to commit this messy act of euthanasia every few months and the splash it made always looked very much the same. At the end of the landing was his remaining supply of ammunition, another five Napoleons. He would have to lay in some more if his current line of experimentation continued to be so disappointing.

 

--JDR