Complex Numbers

What a Pain

Among the destination priorities that I attempted to communicate to the travel agent were a few—just a few, mind you—places that don't involve fine fermented and/or distilled beverages.

Most of them are in Belgium, because my original 2020 travel plans were for that country. The list includes the Hergé museum (you know, the Tintin creator) and, just to balance things out, the Torture Museum   in Bruges.

This probably freaked her out, but hey, that's like 40% of the point. It's not like that sort of thing is unknown in Europe. There was an exhibit of old torture devices in a castle I visited once in Wales. That one took the edge off the horror by incorporating the kind of humor one expects from the Welsh (see also: Doctor Who). You know... dark and dry, like a fine porter ale.

When it comes to knowing how to inflict pain on other humans, humans excel at that shit. Oddly enough, it goes hand-in-clamp with empathy. The reason I say that is that in order to figure out what would cause other humans pain, one must have the imagination to put oneself in their (iron) shoes. Like, "Would that hurt? It would hurt me, so, yeah, I bet it would."

As far as I can tell, this sort of thing happened (and is still happening) all over the world, but perhaps because of our own cultural bias, the penchant of medieval Europe for creative infliction of pain, often for the most minor transgressions (or none at all), is very well-known. Pretty much everyone has heard of "The Rack" and maybe the "Iron Maiden" (whether the dungeon furniture is a worse torture than the band named after it is still an open question).

But it gets worse. Much, much worse.

From the Atlas Obscura article I linked up there:

It’s a wonderfully dark journey with tons of intriguing information. Many of the devices are equipped with mannequins displaying how they were used, which creates a lurid atmosphere.

Look, if anyone asks (the travel agent, for example), I'll just be like, "I'm a writer." Hell, that's my excuse for all my questionable Google searches.

The museum may be shocking to small children as there are wax figurines.

So don't bring your small children. Do I have to think of everything around here?

Best of all, if I go, I expect I'll be there in October. Perfect Halloween material.