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I think this story is officially getting weird.
The Very Secret Journal of Elizabeth Anne Watts, in the Fourteenth Yr of her Age
In 1873, workers replacing the wainscotting in a wing of M------- College found a tiny bound volume, scarcely two inches along the spine.
Entries for October - November, 1840, appear below:
October 17th Dr. Burree is unwell so he sent his student Mr. Cochran when I fell, but he is not a proper doctor yet so when I told him about not being able to move he went and got Dr. Ashton, who says it is my recurrent illness getting worse and had me moved to the hospital. Auntie cried and will visit.
October 18th. Hospital, Day 1 Woke in the night and there was a queer oriental-looking man by my bed. I thought I was dreaming but then had another attack. It is humiliating to go all limp like a doll but it was all right, he is one of the teachers at the medical school and his name is Mr. Jennings.
--It is very dull here, but I have found a mouse-hole in the wall, a good hiding-place for this journal, better than my pillow anyway. I hoped the mice are moved out, and not dead.
October 19th. Hospital, Day 2 It's too bright and cold. I got up and closed the windows but the other patients made me open them again because fresh air is good for the lungs. Mr. Cochran came by to see how I was. We talked about Mr. Jennings, who is his teacher. He obviusly admires him - I mean, Mr. Cochran admires Mr. Jennings.
The other patients argue among themselves as to who has the most elevated temperature. I am beneath notice in this respect.
October 19th. M------ College Hospital, Day 2 - 7:24 evening Must have nodded off; awoke an hour ago to a merciful dusk and the voice of Mr. C. speaking to the attending nurse. He was concise in his questions, attentive to the answers. Still, his brain must be quite flat at the end of the day-shift. When he passed my bed, I whispered "You must be dreadfully bored." He made a wry face and pulling up a chair peered at me over his glasses:
"I was wondering if you were," he asked solemnly. He seemed keen to ask me questions, and began with how I had been sleeping of late, but seeing me tiring of the interrogation he turned to more chearful topics, asking me about life on the farm, if I had any favorites among the barn cats, and so forth. I told him about the big turtle that lives in our pond that Uncle says is a hundred years old.
He smiled, but not as though he didn't believe me.
"I didn't have a whole pond,", he said, "but when I was your age I used to catch tadpoles in the ditches in spring. I'd keep them in jars and wait for them to become frogs, but my sisters always poured them out before they had got themselves more than two legs apiece."
"That was mean of them."
"No, they were tender-hearted. They wanted the tadpoles to go free."
October 20th. M.C.H, Day 3 Beginning to wonder if I am indeed dying. Upon contemplation of the possibility, find I only I wish I was older, and pretty. If I die my relatives will visit my grave with flowers but they would do that any way. Relatives don't count for purposes of romance.
4 o'clock They visited today though.
October 21st. M.C.H (Consumption Ward), Day 4 - Three in the afternoon, more or less Awoke to chills again, washed, listless morning. I fancy myself ill enough now to compete in the Temperature Darby, but at least my cough has not worsened. Keep losing time, though, drifting in and out of sleep, then restless all night. Dr. Ashton says I must keep to bed and not read or think about anything too stimilating. It is a good thing he does not pay attention to little details like mouseholes in walls, or I would surely go mad with boredom.
October 23rd. M.C.H., Day 5 Mr. Jennings slipped me a book - Ivanhoe- on his visit today. It is one I have already read, but I dove into its kindly pages whenever no one was watching who might part me from it. In this big whitewashed room, any diversion is a minute in Heaven.
I had jumped straight to the part where Rebecca refuses the advances of Bois-Guilbert - it wasn't until now I went back and looked at the flyleaf - it's Mr. C's copy. So it seems I have them both to thank.
Mr. Cochrane's first name is Amos. He has funny backward-slanted handwriting.
October 25th. House of the Sick, Day 7
I had the nightmare again where the Phospherus Man is sitting on my chest and suffocating me, and I can make no sound or movement. A cold sensation on my forehead banished my glowing tyrent and replaced him with the thin dark face of Mr. Jennings holding a wet cloth to my brow. He wiped his long-fingered hands briefly on the edge of the blanket.
Seeing me awake he nodded gravely to me and asked if I had been dreaming, so I told him briefly of the Phospherous Man, how he has haunted my dreams and stopped my breath at intervals since I was ten years old.
"He weighs upon your lungs?"
"Sometimes he squeezes my throat too."
He was patient as I struggled to describe my nighttime tormenter.
"The nightmare you describe is found among people in all times and places." He hesitated: "My mother used to call it "Amuku Be," the ghost that forces one down. It's frightening, but you must try to remember whenever it happens that the figure you see is just an image in your brain, and that you can't move because your body is still bound by sleep, but that there is no danger, and the feeling of suffocation will pass."
I can see now why Mr. Cochrane admires him so.
October 27th. Hospital, Day 10 Woke during the night again. Mr. Cochran was asleep in the chair by my bed, and Mr. Jennings was in another chair, watching him and writing in his journal. I don't think he saw my eyes open because after a while he set down his notes and came over to his sleeping assistent. He gazed down at him and stroked his hair before laying a hand on his shoulder and gently shaking him awake. It was the first time I had seen them in the same room and I cherished the sight of the friendship between them.
I turned my face away as the younger man opened his eyes so as not to interrupt their communication.
October 30th Too tired to write.
* * * * * * *
The Very Secret Journal of Elizabeth Anne Watts, in the Fourteenth Yr of her Age
In 1873, workers replacing the wainscotting in a wing of M------- College found a tiny bound volume, scarcely two inches along the spine.
Entries for October - November, 1840, appear below:
October 17th Dr. Burree is unwell so he sent his student Mr. Cochran when I fell, but he is not a proper doctor yet so when I told him about not being able to move he went and got Dr. Ashton, who says it is my recurrent illness getting worse and had me moved to the hospital. Auntie cried and will visit.
October 18th. Hospital, Day 1 Woke in the night and there was a queer oriental-looking man by my bed. I thought I was dreaming but then had another attack. It is humiliating to go all limp like a doll but it was all right, he is one of the teachers at the medical school and his name is Mr. Jennings.
--It is very dull here, but I have found a mouse-hole in the wall, a good hiding-place for this journal, better than my pillow anyway. I hoped the mice are moved out, and not dead.
October 19th. Hospital, Day 2 It's too bright and cold. I got up and closed the windows but the other patients made me open them again because fresh air is good for the lungs. Mr. Cochran came by to see how I was. We talked about Mr. Jennings, who is his teacher. He obviusly admires him - I mean, Mr. Cochran admires Mr. Jennings.
The other patients argue among themselves as to who has the most elevated temperature. I am beneath notice in this respect.
October 19th. M------ College Hospital, Day 2 - 7:24 evening Must have nodded off; awoke an hour ago to a merciful dusk and the voice of Mr. C. speaking to the attending nurse. He was concise in his questions, attentive to the answers. Still, his brain must be quite flat at the end of the day-shift. When he passed my bed, I whispered "You must be dreadfully bored." He made a wry face and pulling up a chair peered at me over his glasses:
"I was wondering if you were," he asked solemnly. He seemed keen to ask me questions, and began with how I had been sleeping of late, but seeing me tiring of the interrogation he turned to more chearful topics, asking me about life on the farm, if I had any favorites among the barn cats, and so forth. I told him about the big turtle that lives in our pond that Uncle says is a hundred years old.
He smiled, but not as though he didn't believe me.
"I didn't have a whole pond,", he said, "but when I was your age I used to catch tadpoles in the ditches in spring. I'd keep them in jars and wait for them to become frogs, but my sisters always poured them out before they had got themselves more than two legs apiece."
"That was mean of them."
"No, they were tender-hearted. They wanted the tadpoles to go free."
October 20th. M.C.H, Day 3 Beginning to wonder if I am indeed dying. Upon contemplation of the possibility, find I only I wish I was older, and pretty. If I die my relatives will visit my grave with flowers but they would do that any way. Relatives don't count for purposes of romance.
4 o'clock They visited today though.
October 21st. M.C.H (Consumption Ward), Day 4 - Three in the afternoon, more or less Awoke to chills again, washed, listless morning. I fancy myself ill enough now to compete in the Temperature Darby, but at least my cough has not worsened. Keep losing time, though, drifting in and out of sleep, then restless all night. Dr. Ashton says I must keep to bed and not read or think about anything too stimilating. It is a good thing he does not pay attention to little details like mouseholes in walls, or I would surely go mad with boredom.
October 23rd. M.C.H., Day 5 Mr. Jennings slipped me a book - Ivanhoe- on his visit today. It is one I have already read, but I dove into its kindly pages whenever no one was watching who might part me from it. In this big whitewashed room, any diversion is a minute in Heaven.
I had jumped straight to the part where Rebecca refuses the advances of Bois-Guilbert - it wasn't until now I went back and looked at the flyleaf - it's Mr. C's copy. So it seems I have them both to thank.
Mr. Cochrane's first name is Amos. He has funny backward-slanted handwriting.
October 25th. House of the Sick, Day 7
I had the nightmare again where the Phospherus Man is sitting on my chest and suffocating me, and I can make no sound or movement. A cold sensation on my forehead banished my glowing tyrent and replaced him with the thin dark face of Mr. Jennings holding a wet cloth to my brow. He wiped his long-fingered hands briefly on the edge of the blanket.
Seeing me awake he nodded gravely to me and asked if I had been dreaming, so I told him briefly of the Phospherous Man, how he has haunted my dreams and stopped my breath at intervals since I was ten years old.
"He weighs upon your lungs?"
"Sometimes he squeezes my throat too."
He was patient as I struggled to describe my nighttime tormenter.
"The nightmare you describe is found among people in all times and places." He hesitated: "My mother used to call it "Amuku Be," the ghost that forces one down. It's frightening, but you must try to remember whenever it happens that the figure you see is just an image in your brain, and that you can't move because your body is still bound by sleep, but that there is no danger, and the feeling of suffocation will pass."
I can see now why Mr. Cochrane admires him so.
October 27th. Hospital, Day 10 Woke during the night again. Mr. Cochran was asleep in the chair by my bed, and Mr. Jennings was in another chair, watching him and writing in his journal. I don't think he saw my eyes open because after a while he set down his notes and came over to his sleeping assistent. He gazed down at him and stroked his hair before laying a hand on his shoulder and gently shaking him awake. It was the first time I had seen them in the same room and I cherished the sight of the friendship between them.
I turned my face away as the younger man opened his eyes so as not to interrupt their communication.
October 30th Too tired to write.
* * * * * * *
