Mr. Mortok's Hall of Curiosities

The Doctor

     I am not a frivolous person by nature. I have always been described as a "serious" man and I endeavor to remain as such, or at the very least practical-minded. I am a man of science after all. It is science which will unlock our world and science which will free us from the most terrible disease. The most terrible of all diseases.

     I was not always as serious as I am now, when I was a child, I played in the fields of our home and I thought childish things. I was dutiful and did as my mother and father asked of me. We lived on a farm as many in my country did. It was a hard life but it was a good life as well. My father and mother did what they could for me and they gave me the best of themselves.

     From my father, I learned the importance of hard work and a sense of gravity for the world. My father's work on the farm had made him a powerful man, with mighty appetites, and robust laughter. However, as powerful and strong as he was, there was gentleness in my father. He never took his hand to my behind unless it was absolutely necessary. He believed a man who resorted to violence, especially against children, was no man at all. Violence was the last resort, not to be used lightly on anyone or thing. The man who raised his hand in anger was a coward.

     "Child," he told me once as he split wood for our stove, "All life is important because it is lost so easily."

     "But what about the chickens, or the cows?" I asked him.

     "Especially the chickens and the cows. We need them to live. We need to eat, my boy, and because we appreciate what they do for us, we must treat them with respect and kindness until their time comes. I have seen much and life is easily taken; life is a fragile thing."

     I was shocked that my father would say such words to me. My father was built like a tree, like a barrel; he was intensely powerful and strong as an ox. How could his life be fragile? "Even yours, papa?" I asked, my voice small.

     "Even mine," he said gravely. Those words resonated with me as a child. If my father said that life was fragile, even his own, then it was, without any doubt or question. Even though my heart was fine, I always thought of myself as sickly, as I had neither my father's monstrous strength nor did I have his boundless endurance. So I believed that only by ensuring that I was careful, that I respected the world around me, could I ensure that I would keep my own fragile life safe.

     My mother was a slight and sweeter thing and she loved my father with all of her heart. When my father returned from the fields, my mother would throw herself into his arms and he would spin her around murmuring endearments to her and hold her to him closely. He was so much taller than my mother and she would be suspended in the air as he kissed her. It was what I equated happiness to.

     While my father taught me much about the world at large, my mother taught me her ways: the village way of medicine and how to brew tea. She taught me how to keep a cold from becoming a hacking cough and how to make fevers go down. Through her, I developed a knack for helping others with their health.

     Generally, as a family, we kept to ourselves, we did not get involved in village feuds. Despite this, my father had an exceptionally strong sense of justice. "There is right and there is wrong," he would tell me, sitting me on his huge knees, "it is important to do what is right even when others would tell you it is not."

     I remember looking up at my father, into his strong chin and his black wiry whiskers, "How will I know what is right?"

     "You will know, my child. You will know as surely as you breathe." My father was never wrong and he did not offer his opinions lightly, and so I took comfort in this.

     I didn't know until later in my life that my father was considered an extraordinary specimen of a man. His strength was whispered to be super human in the village and all gave my father respect. It stung him secretly that they feared him for his size and powerful build. He wished to be respected because he was a good man, and he was one. His word was in some instances better than money and all knew him to be honest and fair.