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The horns sounded hours ago out on the river, warning that we were in for a real London Particular. It's a different world then.....the night, the fog. My world. I find the quiet comforting, at least for a time, at least till the end. Then it begins to crawl along my skin, embracing me, suffocating me till I fear I will go mad if I cannot scream.

It blankets the streets of Whitechapel, making of the teeming daytime byways a ghost town where fear rules and steps are hurried. It is me they fear, though they have never seen me. The Times reports and they listen and let the terror control them. They speculate and wonder, but in the end are fooled by illusions for the monster resides within a cloak of utmost respectability.

If only they knew....but they will never know, can never help me or stop me. All they can do is cry....

I hear her steps now, moving slow and irregular over the stones. The church clock is striking half past two in the morning, and she is talking to a friend. From her voice I can tell she has been drinking, again, and I can feel the first cold fingers of rage steal across me. She passes by this alley on her way home from the Ten Bells or the Frying Pan Public House most nights once the usual hours for soliciting trade have passed and she has had her gin. She has never seen me but I know everything about her. Tonight she wears a new black bonnet, one I sent her...she was too stupid to see the warning in it though.

She is laughing as she continues on alone, down the alley where the fog secrets me. Time is short. I find it harder to breathe now as the fog coils tighter around me. Tonight that laughter will stop, at least for a time, cut away in precise flashes of silver.