Author Information
Nocturnes: Murders In The Rue Vengeance
[after the Universal film, Murders In The Rue Morgue, 1932]
We know your name, "Doctor" Mirakle (odd,
most of your sort prefer "Sir," "Master," or
the more blasphemous usage, "Lord") and we
know what you have done under the cover
of "research in the name of science"; no!,
rather in the name of perversity.
This is not Rue Morgue, but Rue Vengeance.
This is not a laboratory, proper,
but a chamber for---lets us say---exacting
penalties, and the dispoal of perverts
who prey upon young women of all kinds.
We, too, have Saint Andrew's cross, ready, and
recently sharpened blades for bloodletting---
and you are no doubt an expert on that---
and for unanesthetized removal
of . . . well, we will discuss that a bit later.
Did you bother even to ask her name?---
when, lurking in the darkness like vermin
in a cesspool, you found her, fought over
by two prospective lovers, crack duelists
who killed each other in her very sight.
So you lured her back to the dark Rue Morgue,
and stripped her of both clothes and dignity,
leaving only that spaghetti strapped shift,
and her opaque stockings. You fastened her
to Saint Andrew's cross, like some animal
meant for dissection. Then you began to
slice her bared flesh, here and there, to extract
sufficient blood, ostensibly for your
"research"; but more, we think, for the twisted
pleasure of hurting a helpless---
pleasure of dominating a powerless---
victim; holding her waning life in your
filthy hands and hastening its wane. Did
you notice her hands and feet, wrists and ankles,
writhing in those shackles as you continued
to slice her here and there in the only
way you could feel, again, like a real man?
Not even aware of the moment of
her death, until you bothered to notice
her head drooping in the sillent stillness:
you told your servant to dispose of her,
like garbage blithely dropped into the Seine.
This is Rue Vengeance, and not far from the
Morgue, which will not receive what is left of
your body after we allow your death.
Oh yes, we know how to postpone it until
we have meted out the full, slow measure
of such excruciating agony
that you will abandon your god of science
(which is only a mask for the god of
your arrogant, solisiptic ego).
You will rapidly hope in Merciful
God, and you will pray (if screams can be prayers)
for the mercy of an escape through death.
I have read enough theology to
doubt, sincerely, that the prayers--shrieks---screams---pleas---
of a reprobate like yourself will be
given a hearing in Heaven, except
it be for the amusement of the soul
of that girl you tortured: sinner she was
but nearer Christ than you have hope to be,
adamant as you are in unrepentance.
We will break your intrasigent attitude
by breaking you into so many pieces
even the fish in the Seine will ignore
them as unworthy of bottom feeding.
Let us proceed. I see you have already
wet your fine flannel britches. No matter:
you will not remain in soiled clothes much longer.
You will soon wet yourself through many wounds.
(You, you and you: bring him, strip him, bind him.
He can watch while we prepare the instruments.
Let him experience for once in the
last long hours of his perverted life
the ghastly terror that tormented her
before he laid the first blade to her flesh.)
This is Rue Vengeance,
not Rue Morgue,
and you will rue the hour you even thought to hurt that girl.
