Dear mum (a short story about life in the victorian age in England)

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If I ever could imagine this, I would never have let myself go ahead with the time experiment my teacher had proposed to me. Sure, I thought the idea to go back to the real Victorian Age and study for my history test in was brilliant. But that was before I knew how things would turn out. I can only hope that you get this letter, but I do not think that a message in a bottle could be left with much hope for ever arriving at its right place. But at least it got a couple of hundred years to reach land.



I am located at a place I do not even know how to describe. The stench is terrible and I am afraid this letter will smell awful for several years. You might get a breath of it while opening the bottle. I hope not, it is very hard to endure. I am sitting in a dark hovel on a boat that definitely was not build for any human transportation. This is quite ironic considering that the deck is filled with men, sitting so close that you can hardly tell which legs are yours any more by just looking. I guess that that is a good thing because when you stare down at what you think are your leg you wish that it was someone else‘s. I can see the bone under the iron leg that is holding me to this extended death. The man next to me, I can not really remember his name, recently died, but his body still lies here. I do not think that it will be removed any time soon. His death is how terrible it might sound to you a good thing. Not only for his sake to get out of this hellhole but also for us others trapped here. One less to share the little air that sometimes comes circle down the hatchway when the men above set sail. The expressions on the other men‘s faces that you hardly can discern in this damped light, it is indescribable. The look of vast despair on the men‘s faces turns rapid to features of hope when the air comes tumbling down, just to go away when the air disappears. I wished that I had taken your advice mum to spend more time outdoors instead in front of the telly. I really miss the "fresh air" in London. Nothing can compare to this.



You might be wondering what your innocent son is doing on a vessel in the first place. I wish that I could tell you, but like everyone else who is condemned I can only plead innocent. When I first arrived in the Victorian Age of London it was exactly how I imagine it. The streets were stinky and the town was over populated and the poverty was immense. I planned just to stroll about the streets and get a sense of the atmosphere. It all went terrific until I, foolishly enough, decided to see the inside of an original pub. I went into the first I laid my eyes on, “The Ten Bells Pub”. The pub was rather ordinary, a bar, some disgusting toilets, a small stage and, of course, filled with drunken men and women. I ordered in a pint and sat down and looked around. The women there were what you could call “easy to get”. Some came to me and started to talk, but the look of them was repulsive. Many of them had no teeth and had not seen a bath for years. I tried just to mind my own business and ignore them. It seemed to work. I had finished my pint and was heading for the exit. The other gave me a strange look, guess that I differred from the crowd with my wannabe clothes. Outside it was dark, the street was abandoned. I notice a vague movement in the corner of my eye. I turned around and I could not believe my eyes. I froze. In the cover of the darkness of the alley a man was slaughtering a woman! You could hear the last hissing breath from the poor women’s stabbed chest. My dinner ended up in the gutter. When I dared to look again, the man was gone and the poor woman was left there. I was moving away from the women in fear when I suddenly felt a strike towards my head and everything went black.



I woke up with the worst headache you can imagine mum, even worse then Auntie Jane’s migraine. I could not quite remember why I was lying on a hard soil floor instead of my comfortable bed, but then everything came to me. I felt devastated but also relived to be alive. At this point of experience, sitting on this terrible ship, I might have preferred death. But I did not know then what was going to happen to me.



When my head cleared up I noticed that there were other people in the dungeon. At first I could not believe what I saw. Small children crowding with old men, women and teenagers. The mixture was weird, nothing like the kind of discipline that we have in our days. The ones who had been there for a while could easily be picked out, the clothes, or what was left of them, hang loose around their emaciated bodies. The hole cell breath of despair. The place was similar to the place were I am stationed now; both prisons.



The guards came in and ordered us to get out of the cell. A woman, who was just a bit slow, received a blow on the ear and tumbled and fell. She got up fast again as if nothing had happened. The guards took us out to work, one hour at the time. The labour that we had to do, you would not believe it mum! Prisons nowadays seem to be a vacation in comparison. When I finally got of my shift, which felt much longer then one hour I tried to ask one of the guards why I was held here.



“Oh, like you shouldn’t know, you piece of crap. Do not try to give me that innocent look, you bastard.” The guard continued. “Get it, you are caught. We finally got Jack the Ripper. Everybody is talking about it. Haha, thought you get away with it, did you?”



I just stared at him; I have not done a...