Madness can be a difficult concept to grasp, particularly when one is not mad. I have been deemed so by both my learned colleagues, of whom there are several, and by the authorities, who wish to whisk me away to some asylum. It’s a disturbing turn of events that is hardly stomach able by a man of my position.

I have been a physician for many years in this small corner of the world and have built a career that has earned me respect and admiration from many parts of the globe. Besides enabling myself to man in this noble pursuit of medicine, I have also endeavored to research and fund many experiments, all pivotal to man’s longevity.

The dream of all mankind is the prolonging of life, thus is the necessity of medicine and surgery. I can scarcely be described as a man with a fanciful imagination, preferring to remain practical and grounded in reality, yet I confess that what has transpired the other evening to be of something that even the Devil himself could not have conceived.

Throughout my profession, I had worked with and held correspondence with many great men of science from around the continents. Several I had known for many years, a few going even as far back as my days at the university. One of these men had been a classmate of mine in these early days.

He was a brilliant young man, but something of a recluse, quiet and reserved, forever lost in study. This young man was hardly interested in the normal traditions of our age, and only appeared animated when science was involved. For whatever reason, we got on famously and kept in contact for several years, though his correspondence dropped off a decade ago, as my practice prospered and I heard little of him.

One evening, while I was at home enjoying the evening and a good book by a fire, a message was delivered to me from a man in the middle of the night.

“What is this?” I inquired to the youth that presented it to me on my doorstep.

“A man meant for me to deliver this to you. Says you and him were chums back in the school days and that he has discovered something and wants that you should see it.” The boy spoke to me, handing me the letter.