A Day in the Life Challenge: "The Long-Suffering Servant" -- by Lizzie Meddler

The Long-Suffering Servant

By Lizzie Meddler

Vlad! Vlaaaaaaad!”

I heard you the first time, Master. Shouting louder and stringing my name out like a hair removed from a bite of noodle won’t suddenly turn my hearing more acute, had I *not* heard you before.

“Vlaaaaad!”

What is so urgent this time anyway? Did your experiment escape again? I was certain that I had locked the double chains quite securely this time. We don’t want a repeat of last year’s All Hallow’s in Harrows Hamlet. They already tell stories of your foreboding manor, perched atop the ocean cliffs like a solitary bird of ill omen.

“Vlad! Are you even alive? Damn it, mongrel - come when I call! Vlaaaad!”

I will come, Master, as I always do; no need to twist your nose any more out of shape than it already is. Such a shame; I wager that it was a fine nose, once. Regal and strong; I believe society calls it a Roman nose. I don’t know how they know that Romans had noses like that. I don’t believe anyone has constructed a time capsule as of yet.

Oh blessings preserve us - is *that* what has gone amok, Master? Is that the cause of your bellowing my name in such a loudly plaintive fashion? I had thought you were in jest about that particular project, or I should have administered a forgetting tonic last night. Well, I suppose I must hurry down these stairs quicker then, mustn’t I?

Confound it, Master, why must your lair of nefarious schemes be *below* the ground level and my chambers so high up? I deeply appreciate the view, do not mistake me. It brightens my day to awake every morning to a vista of angry sea and to fall asleep to its tumultuous rumble. But these stairs - these confounded stairs - are ever so vexing when I’m in a hurry. Maybe we ought to revisit the idea of installing a lift box.

“Stir your stumps faster, Vlad! And bring a mop, damn it all! Bring a mop!”

Ah, so no failed time experiments or an escaped ponkeyman (I was always against stitching a pony, monkey, and human together; I’m glad we had to put it down). Something. . . .worse has happened; something messy and distasteful and horrendous. You have murdered someone again, haven’t you?

Really, Master, we talked about this. I am your devoted assistant; I will do the murdering and you shall focus on what is important - your diabolical schemes. You can never do the deed cleanly and that creates more work for my loyal self. I am not adverse to a bit of tidying up, mind, but I have so much to do already on a regular basis.

Look at today alone, for instance. Already I’m behind my usual schedule to feed the captives in the dungeon - you know how they rattle their chains when I’m late; it sets off your headaches - and I was meant to take the hydra out to play with the leviathan. Expressions of neglect on twenty heads is more than I can bear. The blood worms’ tank needs scrubbed, the vampire bats haven’t been out in two weeks, and I believe it is a full moon tonight, so I must release the werewolf to have his fun with the village children.

There is so much to do! And you’ve gone and murdered someone - ah, it simply will not do!

“Vlaaaaaad! Quickly! It’s getting all over the place! Ah! I can’t stand it! Such filth! It will never come out of the flagstones!”

What *have* you killed exactly? Blood isn’t so hard to scrub out - not with my special solvent solution - but if you’ve slain another vampire for medical research, I very well may quit.

But how is this? Where are you, Master? The laboratory is empty, the surgery as I left it the night past - all vital organs packed away and the body consigned to the ocean. You are not in the dungeons, surely, and the library is quite dark.

How odd - there is a light on in the kitchen. Ugh, there is a tremendously awful stench creeping from its maw. I see smoke - black smoke, as black as the depths of an abandoned well. Good heavens, what is this sticky goopy substance on the floor?

*What have you done?!*

“At last, Vlad! Help me this instant! Cooking is a nightmare - a veritable dark art for which even I am neither mad nor evil enough to master! Foul smoke and broth everywhere! I bow to you, Vlad my fine assistant, for grasping this art far better than I ever shall. You are clearly superior than I in demonic machinations.”

Yes, Master, I am where this is concerned. And as I am clearly the superior, *you* shall take the mop and clean your mess, and you will be glad that I am so lenient in my anger. I shall return to bed until you’ve done. And never again do I wish to see you in my kitchen, trying to cook, again.