Looking Back

This piece was written for school with a priority of enjoyment over realism. Very little research was done, and none of the characters are based off of actual people. - Iatromantis

I’d normally not be waking up so late on a Sunday morning, but considering my hour, the affairs last night and the state of my arrival the previous night, I feel that God will forgive me this once. Perhaps I’ll be docked a bit of credit for the drunken stupor or for the partner I took to bed—who has apparently left before my waking—in said drunken stupor, but my intentions as a whole were predominantly noble.

As I rise, the first thing I come to notice is the small, black kitten that had been slumbering upon my chest. Picking her—while unsure how I know, I’m positive it is indeed a “her”—up, I stumble down the stairs and set her upon the counter, wherein I retrieve a saucer and enough cream to fill it from our reserves. The kitten is fed, and I stroke her as she drinks, suddenly realizing that I am unable to remember her name. This, of course, takes less importance than the throbbing hangover. By comparison to my throbbing head, the name of a kitten is a trivial thing.

My usual cure for such a hangover comprises itself of blackened coffee, oatmeal and a single radish cut up and eaten in small pieces. Lacking in a radish, I share the other two parts of this cure with the curious creature which I still intend to find a name for.

As I absorb my morning nourishment, I look back upon the events of the night previous.

As I recall, it began the previous morning with my being awoken from a similar state by Hollie, my housekeeper, servant and general attendant. She’s a simple, average woman of average height and a sort of plainness that in it’s self could be found beautiful to someone who was properly inebriated or otherwise inclined to find the plain and simple attractive. Accepting the cup from a nearby tray, I roused myself for work related business.

You see, dearest audience, I am in the business of deaths; explained, unexplained or otherwise. I work for the city, documenting the end of every life that is reported to my office. On this day, I’d already known I would find an unfortunately familiar name upon my lists.

She was the young daughter of a close friend, discovered three nights prior with three gashes over her heart and three piercing stabs through her stomach. T’was a shame, really, for the girl had been such a sweet thing of only five. When she had disappeared earlier in the week, it had been a crippling blow to her family. Still, it wasn’t to be helped. The dead could be documented, but never really saved once they were soundly deceased.

This, of course, meant that her small file needed to be settled. It even included a single photograph, which, while a rarity, was nothing unheard of. Photography was becoming more and more common in the upper-class files. I slid her file away before becoming too sentimental, and promptly took to the rest of my work. Notes from undertakers were tossed this way and that, final testaments and wills were placed where they would need to be recorded, and the world kept turning in its whirlwind manner of usual course.

Hours passed, and eventually my work fell into order. At the usual time, I slipped from the record building and back to my abode for a short bit. Hollie was already preparing for the evening, with my formal coat and shirt laid out. She and I nodded to each other, and I began changing.

“Hollie.”

“Yes sir?” She waited just outside the door.

“I want you to take your nicest dress from your quarters and ready yourself. I expect you to come with me this evening.”

“But sir, such would hardly be proper.”

“You and I are both very good friends with Zheng , and he is married to your sister. Propriety or not, their anniversary is something you’ve every right to attend at my side.”

“As you wish, sir.”

I sighed, then, buttoning up my shirt and winding my pocket watch. “I expect you ready by exactly six on the dot!” I called out, having no intentions of checking if she had actually heard. I went to my study, engrossing myself in a trio of letters to family and friends across the Atlantic. I was not natively European, but America had never held me rapt. My family and I were as close as close could be across such a wide ocean, but I expect they didn’t truly think of me as their child or sibling any longer. I was estranged, I decided, and these letters intended to sever the ties.

Lines were written in my best ink, and then neatly folded and placed in the pile which I would have Hollie deliver to the post on the day which she did such things for me. Each was sealed with my ring, along with blue wax, an oddity which I’d always rather enjoyed.

Hollie and I then departed on the dot, with a prearranged carriage arriving. The driver hardly seemed surprised that I had a companion. We arranged ourselves opposite each other and spoke very little over the course of the ride. I must admit that Hollie, when not clad in her simple clothing of service, had a very fetching face. The change was small yet remarkable. At this point I feel it important to say that I’d not intended any relations between she and myself that evening. Our relationship remained one of pure service and slight friendship, little more.

The event was, as previously stated, the anniversary of a friend and his wife’s marriage. Zheng, as he was known to most, was an oddity in that he was a westerner married to a woman of no colour, as well as his surprising wealth. He had come into it in the will of a former employer, and had since set himself in as the owner of a single factory that produced textiles.

He had married a former servant whom he’d become infatuated with—my own servant, Hollie’s sister as fate would have it—and he and I had met during the dark affair of his coming to better standing. He adapted well, and now, six years later, he had a large family and quite a bit of respect within the city.

We were dropped off, and entered the luxurious manor side by side. The banquet, it seemed, was well underway, and the other guests and myself fell into multiple conversations. They were about the weather, about my work, about their work and so on. Drinks were had, and I myself admit that by this time I had become quite infatuated with a redheaded serving girl whom I wholeheartedly suspect had previously been a well-practiced artist of the world’s oldest profession.

Toasts were eventually made, the party a blur. Eventually I caught, from the corner of my eye, Hollie and a partner slipping up the stairs toward one of the more private rooms. Both their lipsticks had already smeared, and their skirts were in a tiny bit of disarray as it were. Perhaps awestruck for a moment, I then returned to the matter at hand.

The redhead and I were in a heavy discussion on the textile industry, and the bells chimed for the midnight hour. She and I arrived at my abode shortly before the chime of one, and we had entangled within my sheets shortly thereafter.

That, of course, then brings me to my current situation and answers quite a few of my own questions. It does not, however, one inquiry still on my thoughts. Where did this bloody little kitten come from?