Year and years ago - oh, probably mid 80s - I read a short story in a book I checked out of our local library, which means the book could have been published anytime in the last 75 years, because our library doesn’t throw stuff out (until recently, anyway). It was a horror story, and it involved a feudal lord or landowner or something who had punished another man by having his arms and legs cut off, and had the guy in a pen or something in his main lording room for amusement. The main part of the story has the narrator watching from the shadows late at night as Torso Boy painstakingly constructs a rope from his blankets using only his teeth, manages to throw it over the side of his pen and climb out (again with the teeth), then humps his way up to the gallery on the second floor to throw himself over the banister and land on the evil lord or landowner or whatever, crushing his chest and killing him.
I thought it was a pretty cool story when I was a kid. Now that I think back on it, I’m wondering if it would hold up as well now that I’m all growed up. My disbelief doesn’t suspend as easily as it used to. Sound familiar to anyone?