Constant Companion

My breath was visible in the January air. For days upon end, I had remained myself. No thoughts of evil had clouded my mind. I had not woken to the direst of circumstances. Perhaps the salt was finally working, and I could remain Doctor Henry Jekyll for the rest of my life.

I looked down at my hands—or where my hands were supposed to be. They were covered by the sleeves of my coat. My coat felt much too large. I tried to stand and succeeded. I could still walk in my shoes; I was not suddenly much shorter in statue. But for some unknown reason, I felt as though I should be so much smaller. I felt as though I should be drowning in cloth. I tugged on the sleeves of my coat. I took my seat again, confused. I had taken the potion that morning. I was up to taking it twice a day now.

It should be working.

All my experiments said that it had to be working.

All these others around me, I thought, are here for reasons much more selfish than my own.

At that thought I leapt to my feet. The dreadful salty potion should have been keeping Hyde away! That was why I felt like I should be a hideous, deformed creature! I should have been Dr. Henry Jekyll, not changing once again into the horrible Mr. Hyde. Not in the middle of the day, where all these people could see me!

I fled the park. How I managed to return to my home and my lab was something I could not recall later. That time, like so many others, was a blur. But when I staggered down to my lab, there was another surprise waiting for me. My journal where I kept my notes was open, and there was a note waiting for me.

Henry, I was there in your nightmares. The letter read. I was there long before you became a doctor. You heard my voice whispering to you as you walked the dark halls of your childhood home. Your heard me talking to you when the priest at Mass discussed sin.

I staggered away from the table. Could this be true? Could Hyde have been with me for all my life? Had he always been there, not just someone I created for the sake of suppressing desires which did not befit a man of my station?

When you became a doctor, I was still there. Did you think, Henry, that because you chose such a noble profession, that I would take my leave? During all your charity work, did you just expect me to vanish?

I had needed to repent from my actions! From my thoughts! Yes, I had thought he would vanish! I was tempted to throw the book away from me, but instead I drew it closer with hands that were beginning to shake.

I do wonder at times if you created me as a way out of your impulses. But even if this were the truth, my dear doctor, it does not change what is now your life. It does not change that one day you will think you have become me in the middle of the day. That you will look down and think that your hands should be misshapen and hairy. That you will be so much more hideous than you were moments before. You will be drowning in your doctor’s coat, so much larger than my short frame.

The worst part of it, dear Henry, is that you will like it.

But that had not been true! I had not liked it! I had simply been sitting there. I had been pondering my life, and how I had redeemed myself! Hyde had been the furthest thing from my thoughts!

I was always there. It was only when you turned to your experiments that I could finally reveal myself. I was always hidden within you. It is no wonder that you chose to call my Mr. Hyde

I let out a laugh that was on the edge of tears. It was so unlike me to make a joke, and here my other self was joking with me.

At some point I imagine you will wish to end your life. That action will be a disappointment, but alas it is the only way out that either of us are aware of.

I would not! I would deny Hyde his awful urges.

You will need stronger and stronger doses of your potion to make me leave. What will happen when you finally become immune completely?

I remain your beloved alter-ego,

Mr. Edward Hyde.

This letter was far too much for me to deal with after transforming into Hyde earlier in the day. I seized the journal and slammed it closed. I fled the lab, needing to get away. But perhaps Hyde was correct. Perhaps I could go nowhere to escape him.

But I could at least give the church a try.

###

As I entered the empty church, the bell tolled the hour. I stood still, the reverberation moving through me.

Through us.

I flinched at the voice that spoke in my mind. It was as I had always thought his voice would be. It was pitched low, guttural. It was the voice of evil, I thought.

Evil? There was a chuckle. Dear Henry, I am a part of you. I always have been. If I am evil, then you are as well.

“You said as much in your letter.” I whispered the words. No need for the priest to think I was mad. Or, worse yet, possessed.

There was another low laugh. My pondering being possessed must have amused him. He said he had always been there. Had he sat through the hours of lectures as I studied to become a doctor?

You are lucky that your lectures put me to sleep, came the reply. Or you may have had one of your…what do you call them, fits? Yes, you may have had one of your fits in the middle of a crowded lecture hall.

I did not reply to this. Instead, I gazed at the stained-glass windows. Would Hyde smash the windows? Would he do something so blasphemous?

You lack imagination for blasphemy, Hyde replied. But I would do no such thing since it would…draw attention to us.

“Isn’t that what you want,” I asked.

No. In fact, it is the very last thing I would wish for either of us.

I was baffled by this reply. The bell tolled again, signaling that an hour had slipped by when I had been arguing with—with this other part of me. This part of me that thought I was boring.

I exited the church. The freezing winter evening brought some steadiness to my steps. I must go to my lab, I thought, and prepare a dose of salt that would be fatal for Hyde.

Oddly enough, he was quiet at this declaration I would kill him. He remained silent in the back on my head as I mixed the concoction of salt.

God, this would be disgusting to drink!

But I had to drink it, to rid myself of Hyde once and for all.

I tried to raise my hand. But my hand would not move. My hand could not move, not even to grasp the glass I drank the potion from.

I am trying to spare your sense of taste; Hyde’s words were in my head again. And we both know such an action would only make us terribly ill.

“I will happily choose to be very ill if I can use that to get rid of you,” I snapped back at him.

Go ahead, I sensed his shrug. But when you wake, do not blame me for your sense of taste being damaged.

I felt Hyde slip away. He, at least, could spare himself the vile taste of this medicine. I could not, as gagging on the salt was the price I had to pay to be rid of him.

So be it, I thought as I staggered to my cot. I am well rid of him. Even if I must be ill for the rest of my days.

###

The fool had drunk the potion of salt. He had drunk an astoundingly obscene amount of it. If the rolling of my stomach was any indication, being sick was soon upon me.

It was just me. Not us. Not Hyde and Jekyll dueling for who was in front. I was alone.

No, you are not. Henry’s voice was an angry snarl in the back of my mind.

“Oh, it’s you.” I stood on wobbly legs to approach what remained of his lab work. “I see we’ve just switched places.” None of the diagrams made sense to me. I had not been lying when I had said his lectures at college had put me to sleep.

You cannot switch us back, Henry demanded.

“You’re the scientist,” I replied, “not me.”

At my words he slammed a door in our mind and left. Again, I was alone. But I could wait. I could wait for my constant companion to return. Just as he had always waited for me.