Somewhere, Otto von Chriek Is Smiling
It’s a Diskworld thing. Otto is a vampire. He’s also a newspaper photographer. Where he comes from, the scenery is dramatically reactive, and knows that it’s job is to create lightning to emphasize the points that a vampire is making. As a photographer and recovering vampire, he has replaced his love of blood with a love of light, in all its form. One of which is dark light, the “light you get from the other side of darkness”. It has some very strange and disturbing properties when used for photography, such as being able to see the past and the truth.
But with Otto, it’s mostly the lightning thing. Mostly.
‘Right, lads,’ said the dwarf, ‘here’s how it works. Every man who goes home early tonight ‘cos of a headache gets a hundred dollars, all right? It’s an old Klatchian custom.’
‘And what happens if we don’t go?’ said the foreman, picking up a mallet.
‘Vell,’ said a voice by his ear, ‘that’s ven you get a… headache,’
There was a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. Otto punched the air triumphantly.
‘Yes!’ he shouted, as the printers ran madly towards the doors. ‘Ven you really, really need it, zere it is! Let’s try vunce more… Castle!’ The thunder rolled again. The vampire jumped up and down excitedly, vest tails flying. ‘Vow! Now ve are cooking! Vunce more mit feelink! Vot a big… castle...’ The thunder was even louder this time.
Otto did a little jig, beside himself with joy, tears running down his grey face.
‘Music viz Rocks In!’ he yelled.
on 04/12/2013 at 10:10 AM
Well, I never thought of it, but it makes perfect sense that there could be forms of energy dissipated that don’t register on our senses. The light and sound of regular lightning and thunder are merely side effects of the electrical discharge, after all, not the energy as such, but the manifestation of it that we can see and hear. As usual, though, Terry Pratchett leaves a footprint deep in my posterior.
