The Book of the Die - Luke Rhinehart

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rented. After rolling a seven she packed a bag and moved into Doctor Ratner’s newly opened Centre for Research into Randomized Living – referred to by the tabloids as the Dice House. You’ve probably read about it.

      [Mathew looks blankly, shakes his head.]

      

DRABBLE: Delapidated gothic mansion in the middle of a lake, it’s been in all the papers.

      [Takes a newspaper from his desk and taps front page.]

      

MATHEW: I live in a hut.
DRABBLE: Oh, yes. Yes, you said. Well, Ratner’s patients all live there together to practise ‘pure dicing’ in a mutually supportive environment. The police are powerless to help me since Polly is there of her own free will. Desperate measures are called for.
MATHEW: I don’t want to kidnap your wife, Doctor Drabble.
DRABBLE: Call me Anthony.
MATHEW: No, I think I’ll call you Doctor Drabble. Doctor Drabble Who’s Always Helped Me So Much.
DRABBLE: Come on now, Mathew, show me how good you are at abduction.
MATHEW: Er, no.
DRABBLE: You’ll be my favourite abductor.
MATHEW: I’d like to go now please, my hour’s up.
DRABBLE: I’m prepared to offer you a hundred pounds in cash for your trouble.

      [He produces a wad of notes from his pocket.]

      

MATHEW: I make enough money selling mussels, thank you, Doctor. Goodbye.

      [Mathew stands.]

      

DRABBLE: Mathew, now – now, Mathew. I am a psychiatrist. We both know that. I only ever have your best interests at heart. And in my professional opinion what is in your best interests at this moment is to rescue my little sweet pea of a spouse.
MATHEW: I don’t really see how that can be true, though.
DRABBLE: Because if you don’t I’ll have you sectioned.

      [Silence.]

      

MATHEW: Par-pardon, Doctor Drabble Who’s Always Been So Kind?
DRABBLE: Damn my black heart to hell, I’ll have you sectioned, Mathew. I’ll sign a few forms and they’ll lock you up in some anachronistic institution with dark high towers up on top of a spooky hill. Full of noisy misfits who jabber and throw poo at each other. I’ll toss you down one of the many cracks in our fragile society to fester out of sight of all but the rats and the unblinking schizoids. I really am most terribly sorry.
MATHEW: That’s in some ways blackmail.

      [Drabble goes and places his hand on Mathew’s shoulder.]

      

DRABBLE: I will never be able to truly look myself in the mirror again after doing this to you. But there we are.

      [Takes his hand off Mathew’s shoulder.]

      

DRABBLE: The fact is a psychiatrist has the power to abuse his position of trust and I find that idea just too tempting. I’ll render you a right old cabbage-job with drugs better suited to the placation of elephants. Mathew, forgive me.
MATHEW: I think then, I think –
DRABBLE: I’ve helped you in the past, haven’t I? With the ribbons problem? Is it too much to expect a bit of help in return?
MATHEW: I think, Doctor Drabble, that you must love your wife very much to do this, to degrade yourself like this. How much you must love her.
DRABBLE: God help us both, I’m the last of the romantics.
MATHEW: There must be an ombudsman I can report you to.
DRABBLE: My behaviour’s too outrageous for anyone to believe you. I’m a respected psychiatrist and you’re mentally ill. Capable of anything, and a clear danger to children.
MATHEW: I’m not a danger to children.
DRABBLE: It’s not for you to decide who you’re a danger to, Mathew. It’s for me to decide, that’s what makes this world of ours so unfair.
MATHEW: Then I’m a helpless pawn with a touch of the puppet in me?
DRABBLE: I have you by the balls, God it’s dreadful. Only a madman would rather spend his life in an asylum than abduct a psychiatrist’s wife. I might allow myself an ironic smile at that when this tragic aberration is over.
MATHEW: It’s over a year since I last did that silly thing with the ribbons.
DRABBLE: I know. You’re cured. That’s why I know I can trust you with my wife’s well-being. The rest of my patients are no less insane than when I first saw them. In fact, the majority are a good deal worse. You’re a sensitive, intelligent man over whom I have complete control. Take the money, Mathew, and abduct my little lamb gently.

      [Mathew reaches for the cash.]

      

DRABBLE: I can promise you at least that the job is quite straightforward: I’ll get you referred to Ratner as a patient I can do nothing for. It’s a common enough scenario. I’ll bring you to his Dice House where you’ll secretly be carrying this … banana.

      [Drabble produces a banana from his desk.]

      

DRABBLE: Polly can’t resist bananas, I try and avoid contemplating the Freudian implications of that. This particular banana will knock her out for three or four hours.
MATHEW: (pause) So … what, I just hit her on the head with it?
DRABBLE:

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