How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wickedness - Springheeled Jack

November 16th, 2009 Mother died last night. The doctors attributed it to heart failure brought on by malnourishment. They're wrong. Her heart was too hard for something like that to bring her down. I don't think she ever grieved for Father. She gave me a large envelope and said that everything she wanted to say to me was written inside. It's currently sitting on my desk. Maybe I'll read it tomorrow. Today's work is too important, and my brain is too full to accept anything else. Today is the anniversary of when Spring-Heeled Jack bounded into my life, bringing a freedom I never thought I'd feel again. I'm tempted to wear the device at all times, lately, now that I've almost got the secondary piston system on the supports figured out. The way the original pistons are, the strength needed to support a landing, meant that it was difficult to do anything besides jump in them. So I, being the genius that this glorious machine has brought out of me, set up a secondary piston system with less resistance that can be used while the first system is disengaged. It offers enough support for my useless leg to allow me to walk normally, and soon I'll have the controls set up to make it so the systems automatically switch when the system is powered down or up. It's proving challenging, but that's the fun of it, right? There is so much fun in my life, thanks to Jack. He's a good friend to be. Listen to me, I sound like a nutter. That's been happening a lot to me lately, I suppose. I don't know how to describe it, but when I'm working on the device, or wearing it, practicing with it, it fills my head with clarity and my heart with song. Anything is possible when I'm wearing that device, and there don't have to be any consequences. It's freedom from society, from rules, from the prison that my leg has forced me into, from gravity! When I'm out of it, though, and I'm back on my cane or in my chair, the world seems darker, more bleak, and it gets worse every time. Sometimes there are thoughts in my head that frighten me. Thoughts telling me to become him, to forget myself and give myself to my baser desires. I understand, now. I see how my ancestors began their reigns of terror. It's fun, pure an simple. It would be grand to be able to do whatever I wished with no fear of reprisal. Someone angers me, I become Jack and maul them. A piece of art or jewelry catches my fancy, I become Jack and take it. Then I change back, and no one is the wiser, it all just gets attributed to the legend. It's like my very own Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde formula, without the drawback of involuntary changes, just great temptation. As I write this, I realize just how far gone I may be. I refuse to lose myself to this device. I am it's master, not the reverse. I need to find a way to maintain control of my urges. Why? It's true, what I wrote above. It is fun. It is freedom from consequence. It is a license to make this world give me the respect I deserve. Where is the downside in that? Some peons get hurt? People get hurt all the time, what matters the cause of it? I won't actively seek it out, but if they try to stop me, then I shall put them in my proper place. It is the proper way of the world. Yes. This device is a passport to all the joys of sin and all the forgiveness of Heaven right here, right now. I accept that now. I embrace it, and the wonderful wickedness it has revealed in me. To borrow a line from a song that I have been listening to quite often as of late: "Tonight I'll plunder Heaven blind Steal from all the gods. Tonight I'll take from all mankind Conquer all the odds! And I feel I'll live on forever With Satan himself by my side And I'll show the world that tonight and forever The name to remember's the name Edward Hyde." Oh it's true, what a feeling to be so alive! I've had my eyes opened to a whole new way of seeing the world, and I like it. I must redouble my efforts in becoming one with this exceptional machine! Together, we shall make the world bow to us, dear Jack! No, Jack is not seperate from me. I am Jack. Let Johnathan Nimble die with his parents. I am reborn this day. Let the world tremble. (OOC: song is "Alive" from the musical Jekyll & Hyde, copyright Music Theater International, I think)