Well, this is a little story that I'm slowly working on. Any idea where the inspiration came from? Hmmm... Yes, I'm afraid that I went to see M. Night Shyamalan's The Village the other day and I got a free DVD of The Sixth Sense (two-disc special edition as well!) from the cinema. Anyway, after watching it for the first time in a long time (the DVD, that is), I thought that a Discworld version/adaptation would be quite a neat idea, so I present to you the initial seeds of my story...
THE SEVENTH-PLUS-ONE SENSE
Owen Burgoyne
The door to the small dark office slowly swung open. The light coming from the end of the shadowy corridor silhouetted a lean figure standing in the doorway. Its clothes seemed ragged and, by the looks of it, its hair was also unkempt.
"D-doctor Rayven?" said the figure. It was a man's voice.
Doctor Rayven, who had been busy working at his desk, looked up.
"Yes ... I am he," said the doctor in a slightly suspicious tone, as he pushed his spectacles up to the bridge of his nose.
"I-I think ... I think I m-may need your help..."
The practice of psychology in the region of the Sto Plains was a relatively underground phenomenon. Of course, the concept of "headology" had long been known to certain witches of the Lancre area and was a talent secretly respected by others. However, in and around Ankh-Morpork the idea was, by and large, frowned upon. This was partly due to the point of view that the heads of Unseen University took on the idea of delving deep into a person's psyche. They believed that exploration of the human mind was something that should be left alone to the heathens of other less-civilized parts of the Disc, i.e. Genua.
In other words, they were damned well not going to be caught, in the psychological sense, with their trousers down by any Tom, Dick or Harry who could just wander in from the street and start messing with their heads.
This had led to an unfortunate trade in "backstreet psychologists" who, if not careful enough to avoid the prying eyes of the Watch, could end up doing some very fast explaining to the Archchancellor.
And, of all of these backstreet psychologists, Dr Maldric Rayven was one of the most respected.
For seventy-three years Dr Maldric Rayven had, in one way or another, been studying the human (and non-human) mind and it still never ceased to amaze him, in the sense that it still never ceased to amaze him that people could be so consistently dull and dim-witted. Having spent a long time performing research on the Sto Plains and its surrounding areas (including Ankh-Morpork), he had decided to move his research to an area where the chances of studying further deviations of the human mind, with less chance of being mugged, were possible: Lancre.
He had noted to himself when first arriving that, what with the apparent high levels of inbreeding that seemed to be going on, it was amazing that many of the area's inhabitants actually had fully-functioning minds.
And then he had met the Weatherwax woman.
After that Lancre no longer seemed such an appealing place, so he had moved on to an area with an even greater mental diversity; a place where minds ranged from those of short-lived simple country folk to minds that had been processing thoughts, ideas and inspirations for millennia.
He had moved to Überwald.
It was here that he had found his speciality: the undead. It was an area that came quite naturally to him, what with already being dead himself.
I know it's not much, but what do you think so far? I've got most of it planned out, and there are a few bits that'll be coming up later that will (hopefully) cleverly echo/mirror scenes from The Sixth Sense - I just hope they turn out right. And I'm also not too happy with the name that I'm using for Rayven's patient, so the rest'll be up when I've 1) written a lot more of the story and 2) found a name that I like. I'm thinking about stealing one of the names that Mrs Doyle blurts out when trying to guess the mystery priest's name in the Christmas episode of Father Ted, but I'm still not sure...
Oh yeah ... feel free to have a look at some of my older Discworld stuff too, since it's been over two years since I last posted something. It'd be nice to get some more reviews. ;)