The Things Betwixt...

Seven for a Secret

"Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  Winner! 11-26-2015

Who am I?

There’s no simple answer. There lies a stain – a wickedness betwixt the afterthoughts and shuttered recollections of every soul. A madness it is, but in our youths we are indoctrinated into propriety through discipline and stern lessons. What happens when the wall separating the mundane from madness falls? The vessel which holds our darkest parts spills forth a ruination of normalcy.

I recall a woman by the name of Mary. She was my seventh, though my first two remain unknown. A rose amongst thorns she was. Sweet and crisp as morning sun. I removed the parts of her that would make her human; arms, skin, and viscera. In so doing, I learned a secret. Is it sane to accept death? If that is the case, I am most unnaturally insane. You view it as an end. I view it as the beginning. A transformation it is, from the mundane to the magic of eternity.

Did I end her life? I shan’t claim to have done such a thing. I began it. I removed her from the stark harshness of the day-to-days wherein she was forced to scrape a living, flattering men with pain, and face turned to the pillows. No… that was not life. Seven for a secret, ne’er to be told.
What was that secret?

Eternity. I immortalized her that night. The following morn, she was sensationalized betwixt gossip-mongering and penny dreadfuls; a resplendent page in the annals of history as a victim of the most infamous savior that ever existed. Would she have been remembered as the lovely, redheaded prostitute of Spitafields? No.

Who am I, you ask?

This shattered visage is but a halfhearted reflection to the atrocity that is my soul.

They call me – Jack, and I’m and sanest lunatic of them all.

Word Count - 300

Mary Jane Kelly was a prostitute, and widely disputed as the final victim of the most notorious serial killer of the 19th century. At 10:45AM, she was found in her home at Dorset Street, London on the 9th of November, 1888, mutilated and unrecognizable. It was asserted that this was the final murder of Jack the Ripper.