First Entry
I have found myself somewhat delayed in my jaunt to the colonies. Our ship ran aground in the middle of the night and gave us all a terrible fright! Fortunately I was able to get to the life boats in plenty of time, so much so in fact, that I was able to bring quite a few of my books along. I really must thank Mother dearest for splashing out on the top notch rooms so close to the lifeboats. I’m not sure how many of the crew made it out, but there does seem to be decidedly less of us, oh well!
Fortune smiles upon me a second time, the Island is inhabited! However, the locals seem very odd. They were eyeing us from a distance. But being the “man of the world” I am, I marched up to the crowd and introduced myself with all the gusto I could muster. “I am Doctor Hedley Case, pleased to meet you all!”
I won them over in an instant! I’ve never seen such a miraculous change in demeanour. “Doctor!?” they said “We’ve needed a man like you on the island” and helped to carry both my scientific journals and the more maimed of the survivors to the town proper.
Almost everyone seemed to want to buy me a drink, which would have been marvellous, but for the exotic beverages they drink here. What do you do to beer to turn it green? I could not identify a single flavour. Never mind, “when in Rome” and all that. Fortunately, my public school background means I have excellent gag reflex control and could act perfectly natural.
I have a feeling I’m going to really enjoy my time on this jolly little Island.
Second Entry
Tragedy and woe. All that was looking up is now obscured by the bleak sphincter of despair.
One of the townsfolk insisted on escorting me to where he said I would be “working,” as if a man of my breeding did such things. But try as I might to explain to the little chap that I would not be staying on the island for long, he seemed impervious to the very notion I would ever leave.
He took me to the residence of one Doctor Willoughby. What an inscrutable fellow. Before he had even laid eyes upon me I’m sure he had made his mind up to dislike me.
He was curious to know all about my Doctorial experience. So I regaled him on all my academic achievements. Studies into the darkest regions of the mind! Modern science attempting to dissect the human soul and understand its inner workings. Truly I stand as a man at the threshold of a bold new frontier.
His reply wounded me as if he had cut me with one of his wretched knives. “So you’re not a real Doctor”. What backwards terrible dark age have I been marooned upon?! It was worse than talking to Father. Psychoanalysis maybe in its infancy, but to dismiss it so callously as poppycock?! The silly old fool! This man has clearly never read the works of Cidney Fraud.
Well, that was it. The whole town changed before my eyes. Where everyone had been so generous in offering me food and bed to sleep upon, now they are asking me to kindly remove my belongings and shove off!
It’s a bloody good thing my pursuit of knowledge has given me such a robust and enduring mind. A normal man would have been rocked by such harsh rejection. Yes, he’d be rather upset I’d say.
Third entry.
*This page is indecipherably water damaged. As if someone has spent a great deal of time crying over it.*
Forth entry.
I have found a mostly unoccupied and mostly upright abandoned house in the less trendy part of town. I think this will suit me just fine as temporary accommodation. By my reckoning it will be two weeks before our ship is reported missing. A Further four weeks before news could reach Mother, and then a further three weeks till rescue. I just have to hold on until then.
Fifth entry.
Catching something to eat isn’t working out as well as I envisaged. If I am going to eat again in the next few months, I am going to need a job. It can’t be that hard. I’m sure I have a cousin who had a job for a few weeks; it practically runs in the family. I shall play to my strengths. I’m going into town to find someone mentally disturbed that needs analysing.
Sixth entry.
Off to a good start! This town has a wealth of disturbed and unhappy people. My first patient, Mr Derrick Jones is a veritable encyclopaedia of problems. He is plagued with vivid nightmares that his mother is trying to feed him to a sea monster with big wavy tentacles.
Well, it couldn’t get any more rudimentary than that for dream interpretation! So I confronted him head-on. To rip the bandage off, as it were!
“I say, good fellow, do you worry about the size of your Johnson?”
He was so overcome with both conscious and subconscious emotional realisations that he accidentally lashed out punching me square in the face. After committing such a social faux pas he stormed off, no doubt overwhelmed by the revelation I bestowed upon him.
Fortunately, I have decided that all consultations must be paid for in advance to mitigate the effects of such extreme reactions. Thus tonight I dine upon something very turnip like but with more eyes.
Seventh Entry
Hugo survived the shipwreck! He was found later than the rest of us on account of there being no room in any of the lifeboats. The poor Devil had to swim to shore. The careless chap has lost an arm somewhere along the way. He never did seem to have any luck the poor old bean.
He was ranting about a malicious rumour among the survivors. Apparently, someone took up a large proportion of a boat with books, leaving less room for people.
I have moved my books to the attic for safe measure. Unbalanced people can sometimes overreact in preposterous ways when they are emotional. I suspect Hugo may have been breastfed for too long the poor fellow.
Still, the public school boys are reunited! What a force we shall become. I have already encouraged him to start to repairing and maintaining the house if I am to peddle my skills to earn us coin.
Eighth entry.
Hugo really is being impossible. He is taking forever to fix the hole in the kitchen wall. His excuse? “It’s very difficult to hammer in nails with only one arm”. With such an attitude he will never overcome adversity. I am refusing to help him in anyway so that he can grow as a person. He really is very lucky to have such a supportive friend in me.
Ninth Entry.
I’m having a surprisingly difficult time in helping the residents of Hopeless Maine. None of them seem to be responding to my therapy sessions in the way that’s laid out in Fraud’s case studies. Indeed, I felt so exasperated listening to Mrs Cheesewright’s problems I exclaimed “Well I think I would be pretty traumatised if I had been through all that! That’s ridiculous!” She said it was the most helpful session yet, even though I didn’t in anyway manage to connect the trauma to her parents. I am at a loss.
Tenth Entry.
The residents of Hopeless Maine are clearly too demented for just a “talking cure”, I’m going to have to find helpful medicines on the island through trial and error.
Hugo isn’t talking to me at the moment. He lost an eye trying to hold a nail in place with his teeth. The trauma is causing his anger to misdirect at me of all people. Sometimes, being the only person to truly understand the human mind can be a lonely existence.
Eleventh Entry.
I have selected an interesting assortment of plants, fungi and …other to experiment with their possible medicinal effects. I shall begin trials today. I’ll show that so called Doctor Willoughby who’s qualified!
Twelfth Entry
The Ocean has been explaining to me why everyone is so unhappy. It’s the miasma in the air. I have created an air tight fortress by putting the duvet over my head and asking it to hold its breath.
Hugo has outdone himself being passive aggressive this time. He inflated his head to three times its normal size, melded into an armchair and then refused to do the washing up.
Thirteenth Entry.
I now see a massive flaw in my drug trials. I’m already a picture of perfect mental health. There can be no point in studying the effects of those drugs on me. I need to study the effects on someone who requires mental correction.
Fourteenth Entry.
I spotted Derrick Jones leaving something outside my front door this morning. He had left a human skull! How wonderful! I have longed for one of these for my office. I have begun drawing the diagrams on its delightful dome so I can be the proud owner of a Phrenology head. The sweet man must have felt dreadful after bashing me. Gosh, it feels really wonderful to be appreciated.
Fifteenth Entry.
The blue mushrooms with indigo fins are deadly poisonous. Another secret of this unforgiving landscape uncovered by yours truly.
Hugo’s funeral was a touching event. That Reverend Davis seems pretty glum though. I left a few of my cards at the orphanage in case he wants to make an appointment to talk about it.
The house seems much bigger and more solemn now. Still just as drafty! I shall have to get a man in to accomplish what poor Hugo could not.
Sixteenth Entry
That Damn Mrs Beaten! I go through the sufferance of attempting to explain psychoanalysis to a Woman, (which is of course completely futile) and she spurns my polite gesture and starts a damn crusade against me.
The front page headline of the Vendetta today reads “All feelings are obscene”, Mrs Beaten goes on to clarify that it’s okay to express feelings of moral outrage and at certain times disapproval and disappointment, especially where children are concerned.
She has smeared my practice as “nonsense at best” and at worst “corrosive to the moral fabric of society”. She asks, “If we start asking people how they feel, soon we might start asking them what they want! Where will it end?”
Well, this is me well and truly dashed. I always knew it would be a woman that would be the death of me, but this is even more depressing than even I dared imagine.
Here, we welcome the utterly brilliant poet, Rebecca Willson to the island. As this proves, she also has a penchant for comic prose! The art may have been done by Tom Bown (possibly)
