Page 168 - The Grotesque Children's Book

changed with the series of tragic deaths in his life. His mother, his wife, and soon his father.
Then there would be none left to protect. No one either to mourn or to wither without him, so
scorn, bah; intimidation, doesn't matter. He would seek out Her Majesty's doctor's advice. Santi
had the love of thirty humans for her father, and was determined to bring him back to health.
Santi would not lose his father to the Symptoms. If it gives me a chance to extend my father's
life, then what matters the perils it cause my own life! And so it was that young Santi del
Meglio, all of eighteen years of ago, crossed the forbidden social boundary, and rapped at the
office door of Dr. Ludovico Valerius.

“Ever so sorry to bother you, Signore --”

Poor Santi. He might as well have saved himself all his internal turmoil, for it was not a
forbidding accusatory face which greeted him, but rather a kindly, gentle look from a face thin
and gaunt but merry, with iron-grey eyes which caught the light of the hurricane lamp near him
and reflected it back to Santi.

“Oh, hello there young amico. You're one of the painters who live on the ceiling in the
hallways, aren't you? I've seen you up there every day for weeks! Come in, come in.” The
doctor strode over and ushered Santi to a small straight-backed chair and sat him down. “It must
be grueling on your back, being upside down like that all the time. Is it grueling? Does your
back ache?”

Not the question I was expecting, thought Santi. “A little, sir, yes, if you must know.”

“I shouldn't wonder,” said the doctor. “After a few years of that, a painter will wear
himself out for good. I see that elder painter at the end of the hall, oh, so knotted and hunched.
Allori I believe I've heard his name. You mustn't let that happen to you, Nicco -- Nicholas -- no,
it's Santi, isn't it? They call you Santi, don't they?”

“They do. Santi del Meglio.”

“Del Meglio. Del Meglio. That means 'the Best', doesn't it? The finest. Are you the
finest painter, Santi del Meglio?”

“That's my family's name. I didn't choose it. And, and I don't feel we're the best, no,
Signore Dottore.”

“Modesty! I like that in a young --”

“Uh, no, not modesty,” interrupted Santi. “Death, sir. Hard to be the best when you're
dead.”

“Depends on your perspective.” Dr. Valerius leaned forward, frowning his eyes with a
deliberately over-inquisitive look, “You don't very dead to me.”

“Just a matter of time.”

“Well, for all of us.”

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