Read Online The Unexpected Occurrence of Thaddeus Hobble by Gareth Wiles - Free Book Online

away all that was terrible about humanity and hide away. That they did, but the residual memories of their past lives and the unending recurrence thereafter of more existences would be inescapable. Separated before birth, they lived out their lives without the previous knowledge they had been so overwhelmed with. But, it was always there… somewhere.

STEPHEN’S UNFORTUNATE REMOVAL
    I am a difficult person. I am afforded good looks, which gets me the attention of many a female – equally, I am disfigured inside where no woman, or even medical person, could see. My troubling nature has landed me on this ship as a fag of a slave, mopping up after the pompous ‘higher’ men and generally being a lackey. My family’s own moderate wealth has at the very least delivered me on board a survey voyage and not some ghastly war effort. Perhaps that is a sadness, as I feel even less purpose aboard Beagle as I did ashore. I keep no check on our location, and take no interest in the survey itself – my only mental stimulation is the going over of my own thoughts. They are a sifting through of two main events in my life: the final straw that broke my family’s patience and led to my presence here, and a recurring dream I have of a large upright box emanating a powerful force and a rather plain yet alluring blonde woman coming either from within it or alongside it. Both are, what you might call, a bloody bind. Let me tell you about how all this began – sit back and savour this wonderful recounting.
    The two events, though separate, could be construed as linked. The latter – that of the woman and the box – ultimately resulted in the former – the final straw. No straw was actually broken, but to describe the breaking of something is getting somewhat near to what happened. Yes, the woman in my dream, let us begin there. As I say, from what my sleeping vision would allow me to see of her when I first saw her, she was at first glance rather plain. I have, in the past, judged very much on first looks – they can be a good indication of many things about a person; a rogue and a ruffian can be quickly picked from a gathering of otherwise educated and wealthy individuals. This plain woman – I could not ascertain her place in society at all. Her drab white garments merely allowed a bleeding of colour from her pale face and long, thin, blonde hair. I wanted to get to her, but could not. She was but a figment of my slumber. That is when I struck at the idea of tracking her down in the waking world – that was my only way of getting to her. To say I found her would be to mock both my wonderful dream and give credence to the person I thought was her. The woman I came across was very similar indeed to the one I’d envisaged and I set my sights on her. What followed, of course, will be of interest to the men who say they cannot form tears. Let me tell you, men can cry – especially when their manhood is compromised.
    There was absolutely no point making a play for Lauren. So many boys, and then young men, had tried and ultimately failed to succeed with her. She was having none of it – nothing whatsoever. Gossip was she’d never even allowed a boy to kiss her, let alone do anything else. She never lacked attention, either, in fact far from it. In her younger days there was a healthy queue of boys eagerly waiting to have their go at breaking her cold hard starvation of romance. But, no, none of them ever succeeded.
    She was not the most beautiful of women, but she was not ugly either. Slim, almost unhealthily so, and rather pale with a pointed nose, her blonde hair remained tied up in a tight bun atop her head. Nobody ever saw her with her hair down – nobody ever saw anything more of her than what she wanted to show – her pale face, and her pink hands. The rest lay hidden beneath a small ever-circling collection of bland baggy white dresses. The fact she was so