A Street in London; a quiet, cold morning sometime in October
Sitting in the vintage armchair near the bay window where most of my sharp thinking occurred, I was seemingly lost in translation. The latest facet in my mind was nothing more than simple questionnaire with some members of town: nothing to tempt more than a few days, I presumed. In the past few months, as I had previously commented to Mary, no real turn had occurred in our London dwellings. No one had approached me with an interesting case. This was the real mystery to me. Danger, suspicious, game, thrill, anxiety: all had taken deep departure from my life. I sighed and shifted my weight to the left side of the chair, it squished beneath me. Looking down from my apartment upstairs, I saw something rustling below. A bird? As I looked closer, I became intrigued.
The girl was scurrying down the path with a dozen papers in her hands. There was darkness under her eyes and she seemed unaware of her surroundings or that her hair was in the most unfashionable array. She probably did not have the chance to look in the mirror that peculiar morning. Suddenly, she stopped and looked around with dark, piercing eyes. She squinted a little when she saw the lone trashcan near door four-hundred and fifty seven at the end of the street. Shifting her neck left and right, making sure no one was watching, I presume, she began moving slower than previously documented. When she came up to the trashcan, she took all the papers in her possession, wrinkled and battered from the journey over, and threw them in. Without a second look, she retreated, turned around, and swiftly walked away.
I did not think of that frosty October morning until it had been quite certainly two weeks later when I received a ring on my door. Sipping on the tea my maid had presented for me but five minutes earlier, I was initially startled out of my gaze to the sky outside the wide balcony window. Surely, I called for Mary to open the door but there was no reply. I assumed Mary had left to the market as she told me before, I recalled. I lazily stood and walked to meet my visitor without hurry. As I opened the door, there before me stood the girl of two weeks prior, now look fresh and marvelous. I unconsciously took a step back.
With her flowing dark brown hair, she looked beautiful. Her eyes were a warm and inviting tone and the darkness underneath was long gone. I realized that before from afar, I did not have a chance to truly marvel at this goddess before me. God must have truly spent some extra time on her making, or perhaps he was just in a jovial mood that day, ready to mock the rest of our mortal appearances.
Swiftly, I felt a hand make contact with my cheek as I was knocked out of my daydream.