Dead Souls Volume One (Parts 1 to 13) Read online

  Part Six

  I

  For Doctor Alistair Burns, it started forty years ago. Newly qualified and out in the world for the first time, he stepped off the ferry and breathed his first lungful of Thaxos air for quite some time. It was fresh, crisp air, unlike the air to which he'd become accustomed on the mainland; the air on Thaxos filled him with a sense of vitality, of strength... and most of all, youth. He was a young man back then, and he felt that there were no limits to his life.

  “Doctor Burns, I presume?”

  Turning, he saw a little old man shuffling toward him, smiling patiently.

  “Doctor Paul Lassiter,” the old man continued, holding out a trembling, liver-spotted hand. “I thought I should come down and welcome my replacement personally.”

  “I'm glad to be here,” Doctor Burns replied, shaking the man's hand with calculate firmness, just as his father had once taught him. “It's been so long since I left to study on the mainland.”

  “You'll have to get used to the pace of life here again,” Doctor Lassiter told him, “but if you can manage that, you'll be quite happy. One can certainly never feel lonely when one has the privilege of looking out the window and seeing such a beautiful view. Sometimes it feels as if Thaxos is a whole world away from any other place. You don't get such a wonderful environment in Athens or Rome, do you?”

  As they made their way across the town square, Doctor Lassiter filled him in on a little local history. He explained that Thaxos was a quiet place, that on most days there would be no more than two or three patients, and that for the most part life moved slowly. He made brief mention of the dark mansion up on the hill, but he added that the place was long since abandoned and that there was no chance of the Le Compte family coming back to claim their ancestral home. The Le Comptes, he insisted, were lost to the island's history. Finally they reached the surgery, which the old man had recently vacated and which Doctor Burns had arrived to take over.

  “You'll rarely have to deal with anything too serious,” Doctor Lassiter explained. “Most people will just come to see you with a bunion or an ingrown toenail, although that won't stop them making a right old fuss in the process.”

  Doctor Burns smiled politely.

  “I suppose I shouldn't natter too much,” Doctor Lassiter added. “As of today, I'm officially retired. I shall simply have to find some other way to fill my time.”

  Again, Doctor Burns smiled, while inwardly thanking God that he himself was still a young man. He could scarcely even begin to imagine what it would be like to be old.

  Although he waited patiently as Doctor Lassiter fussed, Doctor Burns was keen for the old man to get going. To clear the decks, as it were. For half an hour, he listened to stories of the island's history, and he began to realize that for the old man, this was a difficult moment. Eventually, however, Doctor Lassiter seemed to realize that the time had come, so he offered one final piece of advice - “Do your best for these people, and they will do their best for you” - and then he bade farewell and carried his tattered old medical bag out the door. Doctor Burns went to the window and watched as the old man shuffled away along the dusty road, and for a moment he caught himself thanking the Lord that he himself was still young.

  Full of enthusiasm, he decided his first job should be to hang his new sign outside the front door. He'd spent so much money on that sign, a little luxury he shouldn't really have afforded, but he wanted to set off on the right foot and show the locals that he was a man they could trust. Grabbing a ladder, he went out the door and climbed up, removing Doctor Lassiter's old wooden sign and proudly hanging his own. Climbing back down the ladder, he took a step back and admired the sign as it glinted in the afternoon sun:

  Doctor Alistair Burns Phd

  Physician

  He knew it was foolish to be so proud of a simple sign, but still... He was the island's new doctor, its only doctor, and he felt a duty to these people. As he headed back inside to start setting up his surgery, he told himself that the sign would serve as a kind of beacon, encouraging people to come to him for help. The future, he was convinced, would be good, and he would never end up like Doctor Lassiter, being shuffled out of the way by a new man. Thaxos was just a stepping stone to something greater, something more important. He was going to change the world.

  As he headed back inside, he tossed Doctor Lassiter's faded old wooden sign into the trash.