Review - Rewind

Review-Rewind

“I would like to try something on you Mike,” Dr. Strawberry said to his disturbed patient. “I just want to make sure you’re onboard. It’s experimental and could be disturbing.”

“Disturbing? How worse can it get?” Mike asked his psychologist who gave a nonchalant shrug.

“Mike, I had a friend that started having disturbing thoughts just like you. He’s a super guy that didn’t have a violent bone in his body, just like you.”

A few months back Mike started having fits of rage and violent tendencies.

“What happened to your friend?” Mike asked.

“He had a meltdown, just like you.” Dr. Strawberry said. “And, just like you, he became angered. Then he got physical, just like...”

“Yeah, just like me, I get it. What is this experiment?”

Dr. Strawberry tried certain stress relief treatments to curb Mike’s aggression, but nothing worked. For the Doctor this alternative, though dangerous, was the last chance of Mike having a peaceful life.

“There is a drug, an eye drop, that triggers the memory vaults in the mind. I can see you already think it is some hocus-pocus shit, just hear me out. Ok?”

Mike listened to the Doctor explain the treatment. Mike didn’t believe it but was willing to give it a try.

“I call it Review-Rewind. The eye drops open up a hidden lens in your eye,” He said. “It charges the retina and other optical nerves behind the eye which in turn ignites the brain. You see your brain is a database. A database of the thoughts and experiences you have in this life and well, other lives. The drops once absorbed is like a code to the vaults from your previous lives.”

That was the part of the story that Mike laughed about. Recalling past lives seemed absurd, but he was willing to try anything to stop the evil inside him. He had to do something or the people he loved could be in danger. After Mike agreed to proceed with the treatment, he was restrained in a lounge chair. The Doctor applied three drops of silver liquid into each eye. The drops, looked like beads of mercury, stung as it absorbed into the eye ducts. Mike’s pupils expanded and throbbed followed by a feeling of worms squirming into the back of the eyes. The slithering Worm sensation migrated into his brain. Mike gasped leaving his mouth opened, turning into a stereo speaker that blurted out white noise.

Doctor Strawberry nodded as he adjusted Mike’s chair into an upright position. Mike’s eyes started to change into a mosaic of colors like a kaleidoscope. The Doctor walked across the room and pulled down a white view screen. He then pulled down the window shades to block out the sunlight.

“Alright Mike,” he started. “Soon you will see, hopefully, what has caused your anger.”

The Doctor turned off the room’s light and sat in the darkness waiting for Mike to turn on.

“Any second.” He said.

Mike’s eyes shot out lights showing images on the screen. Audio coming from his lock-jawed mouth started to synchronize with the images. The Review-Rewind commenced turning Mike into a human film projector.

“Damn, I wish I had popcorn,” the Doctor mumbled.

For an hour the images of Mike’s life were reviewed starting with his most recent moments down to conception in his Mother’s womb. After the conception the screen went blank. Mike’s mouth provided the static audio. Dr. Strawberry sat and waited to see if a prior life would appear. He waited for almost an hour until Mike’s eyes showed a Woman looking at herself in a mirror. The Woman was very attractive with long black hair and a bright smile.

The audio of her delicate voice piped through Mike’s mouth…

Forgive me, I’m not one to introduce myself. My Husbands did the honors of introductions. Yes, I said husbands. My fourth husband was an Englishman named John Daltrey. I met John while living in North America. After three failed attempts, I consider myself unlucky in matrimony and had resigned any pursuit by a gentlemen caller. However, John had a charming manner that was intoxicating to me and we married. John worked as a banker in London, England. His lucrative job settled us to a modest home on the outskirts of Victorian London.

The newness of our marriage faded fast. Finding it hard to retain John’s affections, I found myself walking the streets of London’s East End district called Whitechapel. It was on these walks that I contemplated our failing marriage. Our love was dying like a flame from a gas lit streetlight that burned strong in the early evening but snuffed out at dawn.

John’s occupation kept him away for long periods of time leaving me alone to think. My thoughts were as wild, cold and dark like the late evenings at Whitechapel. I fought back my feelings that our dwindling love was on the brink of extinction. I needed answers to thwart away my accumulating paranoia.

I started following, spy, John on his walks to work. His banking job made him travel to many districts in London, including the unsavory Whitechapel. I followed him through the streets even during dangerous times in that destitute London district until I lost him. One night, John went missing.

It was late summer of 1888 when I started searching for my missing husband. There was fear in the district as a serial killing spree known as the Whitechapel Murders had crippled the overpopulated residents. The attacker, assumed a man, was called different names from the Whitechapel Murderer, Leather Apron or the more popular title of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper’s victims were female prostitutes. The Ripper slaughtered with a precise rage of madness, using large knives to slice the Women’s throats, disembowel and carved other parts of their sin-torn bodies.

Despite the killings and warnings from authorities, I strolled the poor streets of Whitechapel in the late evenings. I trekked London’s East End alone, always alone, searching for my estranged husband. I was not timid walking through one of London’s dangerous places of that period. Though despite the Ripper activity, there was plenty of violence and crime generated by other angry Men throughout the district. Violence and crime were part of the economic growth in London’s East End and Whitechapel was at its epicenter.

One late evening approaching midnight, November 9^th, 1888, I walked down a row of brick field dwellings called Hovels. I had concluded my walk in Whitechapel and journeyed into another East End alley way of an area known as Spitalfields. It was at this alley way where I heard a scream of a Woman’s voice coming from the adjacent location of Miller’s Court on Dorset street. It was not a scream of someone being attacked, but a yelp of one discovering something horrific. It was a yell from finding a body carved by the Ripper!

I hurried my step hearing the Woman’s scream. I was wearing a long coat that covered my modest dress, but it allowed in a draft that chilled my skin below the dress line. My shoes clacked along the uneven brick alley way as I stepped up my pace. The alley’s gas lit lanterns dimmed from the draft of my hastened saunter. My ears rang from the echo of the Woman’s screams. I was startled by something abrupt that paralyzed me. It was not the Woman’s screams that contained me. There was someone else in the alley clinging on to me. I felt suspended as the holding presence sent a surprising jolt of chills inside me. I cringed from being touched from behind on the shoulder. The touch turned into a hardened grab that twirled me around to face my unwelcomed dance partner. It was a large Man, over six feet tall, looking down at me.

“Shush,” he said in a heavy immigrant accent. “You come with me. Now!”

Upon hearing another scream, the giant Man with his hand now clung under my armpit, guided me into his dwelling. The Man’s small and squalid hovel was dark with a pronounced pungent scent of vomit. Upon release, I could see the outline of the Man across from me. He grabbed a lantern from a small round table in the middle of the room. The home lit up when the Man ignited the lantern. The light also exploded a view of the Man’s face. It was a weathered face, cracked leather skin with a nose squished to one side. He snickered exposing a gray colored film that infested his remaining teeth. He only had few strands of hair on his dented-bald head. I could not hear the Woman screaming anymore.

***

The Doctor gasped at the movie scene. Mike is the monster! Dr. Strawberry thought jotting down notes. He looked over at Mike still in film projection mode. This is where Mike got the violent tendencies from. Mike must be this large Man. He’s going to kill this poor, beautiful Woman! He looked at the Woman as she talked to the Giant. It was a split screen view of the two individuals.

***

The Woman continued her narration…

“What is this all about?” I asked.

We walked around the table in the same direction. It was at a slow methodical pace and he was the chaser.

“That depends on whatever I decide.” He said pointing at me. “Not you!”

The Man was pretending to be angry. We stared at each other walking around the table like dance partners at a gala.

“I have seen you around Whitechapel at Bucks Row. You know what they say about Bucks row?” He asked leaning forward from across the table. “Stay away from Buck’s row! Yet you do not heed the warning!”

The light shone on his wool beige shirt showing spots of red and brown dots. The same dots were on his hairy arms. I thought he had some sort of plague, but realized it was blood.

“Who’s blood is that?” I asked.

The Man gave a half-wry smile trying to look intimidating as he walked along the edging of the round table.

“Just victims that I collect along the way. One’s that make other scream in fright.” He grunted at me referring to the Woman’s screams. “Do you like my apron?”

I saw an overused leather apron tied around the Man’s large waist. The apron hid what looked like two potato sacks for pant legs. For a large robust Man, he had no belly. That was the problem with Whitechapel and the other East End locations, the people were poor and hungry. This powerful Man’s appetite was not for food; but forcing Women into his domain of filth to satisfy a deeper hunger.

I looked at the Man’s leather apron. “Yes, more stains I see. So, whose blood is it? Man, or animal?”

The Man gulped, surprised that I was not afraid of him or his grotesque props. It seemed odd to him that a small inferior Woman was calm to be in the presence of a monster.

“I am scary Man!” He roared trying to intimidate me. “You should fear me! I am scary Man!” 

***

“He’s going to kill her!” Dr. Strawberry said biting his lip while leaning in his chair towards the screen. “Get out of there young Lady!”

The Doctor watched the Woman and Man circling the table watching each other.

“Why be afraid of you?” I said in a calm tone. I studied him and realized his accent was either a Russian Jew or perhaps French Huguenot.

“You, you not afraid?” He asked.

It was not his accent that was pronounced in his voice. It was fear. Before me, the Giant was the one that created fear through intimidation with his physical stature and ugly face. Fear was his tool to rape. Now he was in fear, knowing that his greatest strength had no impact. He barked out more comments and vulgar remarks only realizing it meant nothing to me. I have never been afraid of anything except losing the love and adoration of my Husbands. This Man, if you could call him that, mistook me as a small weak Woman from being startled by his grasp.

“I am not afraid of you. I have also been watching you during my jaunts. You look at me as one of these murdered whores. Like the one tonight, Mary Jane Kelly.”

The Monster stepped back from the round table and gave a curious raise of his brow which moved his side nose.

“Mary Jane Kelly is the Woman’s name?” He asked.

“You might know her as Ginger.” I replied.

“Ginger? How do you know her name? How do you know her name?”

I ignored his angered fueled question and glided along the circular table. The confused Man was mumbling knowing that I was in control now and not him. The direction of the table walk reversed. It was reverse polarity where I became the pursuer. Out of fear, the Man moved faster along the table’s perimeter from me. We orbited the table, like the moon chasing the sun. 

“You use your brutal looks to scare Women. You scare them to have your way with their bodies. The blood on you is not from these slaughtered whores but of horses. The smell of the horses intestines reeks this decrepit pit you call home. Your nose and the many dents in your head are from getting bucked by a horse. I take it you work for the horse slaughtering company on Winthrop street?”

The Man nodded feeling exposed.

“Yes, Messrs-Harrison-Barber and Company. The blood and smells is that of a slaughtered horse.”

We continued looking like Children chasing each other around a tree.  

“You felt powerful using the recent slayings of these prostitutes to fill your needs.” I said folding my arms.

The circling of the table slowed down. The Man nodded at my assertion. “I was questioned at work about the murders. I was found innocent, but I had this urge to pretend to be the slasher. I apologize.”

“I understand.” I said giving him an assured smile. “You do look the part and see why you were a suspect.”

The Man nodded and laughed. “It is hard not to be seen at my size and ugliness.”

We both laughed.  

“That is the problem as to why these crimes won’t ever be solved.” I said to the Man looking confounded by my statement. “Besides who would want to solve a crime against whores?”

“They are whores.” The Man said. “Who cares about whores?”

“Correct. My husband, John, had a penchant for prostitutes. When we came to London, I was sort of in denial with his addiction. After all I was newly wed to my husband, so I tended to lean at the side of trust. I was wrong to trust. I followed him many times to these condemned areas and saw him with these whores. It angered me so.”

I walked around the table towards the Giant, but he did not move away being enthralled by my tale. “It’s happened to me before with prior marriages. It is just that your species, Men, are weak and easily encouraged. I have only myself to blame, I suppose, just bad judgment again by me. One night I followed John and watched him lay with a whore. Mary Ann Nichols was the whore’s name. And when he was done with her, I killed him. Fortunate for me there was a hog slaughterhouse nearby where I disposed of his remains. Those pigs were hungry. Then I went after her.”

 “I don’t believe you!” He said to me. “You are a killer?”

***

Dr. Strawberry watched the confused Man laugh. “What are you doing young Lady? Are you trying to convince the Monster to leave you be?”

The Woman’s narration continued…

The Man was skeptical asking what my blade of choice was to kill. I took off my coat exposing my leather apron on my dress, both stained with Mary Jane Kelly’s blood. The Man gasped looking at the sheaths on the apron with knives holstered in them. Five knife handles jutted from the holsters. I grabbed a long-jagged knife and stabbed the Man’s thigh. He looked at the embedded knife in his leg. I took out a shorter knife and sliced his throat. The Man’s eyes bulged out.

“Now you know how the horses felt. I usually like to start off with a quick slash to the throat,” I said. “I would slice the whores throats first so they wouldn’t scream. And then depending on how dark and angry I was, I would continue my assault.”

The Man gurgled with his open front neck looking like a blood waterfall. His sheer size kept him alive as I told my tale of killing the prostitutes. I continued talking about Mary Ann Nichols that I killed in Buck’s Row, and how I mutilated Annie Chapman where she bedded my husband on Hanbury street. I demonstrated on his large body what I did to the other whores with my knives. At last I told him that there were more victims, including my Husbands, throughout the years in different parts of the world. I welcomed him to my collection. The Man turned and fell backwards onto his raping table demolishing it. The Giant, still alive, looked up to me.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself after you welcomed me into your lovely home. How rude of me! My name is Jacqueline Willoughby, but I go by Jacq.”

The film ended. The lights that came from Mike’s eyes were gone. Strawberry turned to Mike who was holding his jaw.

“Mike? Are you alright?” He asked. “Did you see your past life?”

“I saw it all. Even the events before and after this encounter. I was once a Woman named Jacq, Jacq the Ripper.”

THE END