The Night She Met Jack

Prose poetry - Jack The Ripper

The Night She Met Jack

 

 

An ever oppressive darkness cloaked the streets and swirling fingers of a light fog drifted about, lazy like the murk of the nearby river to which they were clinging.  Something in the night seemed to cloak her footsteps as she walked along that dismal sidewalk on that dismal evening, ever watchful of the shadows �" so prevalent on evenings like this one.  Those same thoughts haunted her every night as she walked this same hated path. 

 

The misted glow of streetlights broke through and cast back the blanket of night, just barely, each standing a solitary vigil, surrounded completely by that inky darkness that always waited to attack them.  They were tall thin, soldiers of the light, looking down through the swirling mist, guarding the same circular patches of street from dusk to dawn every night.  She was grateful for them, for the most part but somewhat not, for they also cast a shadow that seemed a mockery in the way it swept around, across the ground and up the wall, and back down…  blending once more into the darkness as she passed through the protected circle and walked again into the night’s embrace.  Scared of her own shadow, she thinks.

 

It was on one of these little walks that she met Jack.  He seemed a perfect gentleman, if he did blend too easily with those hated shadows.  With his sparkling eyes, which seemed a little odd to her in that they lay in the shadow of a perfectly arrayed top hat, he spoke to her heart.  With a voice just barely a whisper, he reached into her mind.  The fog’s clutching fingers drifted into her brain and with some confusion; she realized that she was no longer afraid.  Here was a friend she could trust.  Here was one that appeared as a shadow among the shadows, but seemed to her now, as the only point of light.  And so, she went to that light and found darkness and in that darkness, the red glowing eyes, and voice of death, and she met Jack.

Reviews

[Poetic Beauty]

This is a detailed story for the limit of words that could be used. I can see her walking down the old brick streets alone afraid of the the darkness and what might be lurking inside the inky blackness. The meeting of Jack seems quite pleasant at first and then without too much gore you explain the change. I really enjoyed how you ended this piece with a hint of mystery, but you give the general idea of what happens.