O Restless Night!

• Isabella Croker, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2015

O restless night! Restless if I ever did know it. Although I cannot feel it, I suppose it is quite cold – the miserable kind that can chill anything from the tip of a nose to a good mood. London is in quite a mood this December.
The wind is tossing and turning through the darkened streets. I don’t envy its agitated sleep – I was in peaceful rest moments ago, wrapped in a wooden blanket and blissfully unaware of the stench of sewage-soaked English soil. I lament being awoken: an old man deserves rest, and death from old age has a finality about it which should be respected.
I am wondering to whom I owe my awakening: he shall receive an onslaught of angry thoughts (I am regrettably unable to speak). Unfortunately I am still held by rigor mortis, which prevents my moving to view him.
I am strewn across a cart which is bumping along with the vigour of an overpaid moneylender, my head against the wood just the same. This, I imagine, hurts. Careful with the goods! Another bump brings my head to the side, and into my vision my captor’s arm, clad (ironically) in mourning black. I can’t much make out his features but for an aura of casual confidence. I imagine he frequents the grave-robbing trade. Hardly a respectable gentleman!
I wonder whom I might be sold to - and for how much! In these hard times, I doubt I’m valuable. I’ll probably end up with a doctor - I cannot imagine another use for a body and should like to keep my imagination quite inactive in that respect.
I see my purchaser now – a small fellow. As he draws closer, I see he is not a man, but a woman!
A laugh erupts above me, nearly stopping my heart. (Pardon the irony).
“‘Bit lost, Swee’hear’?”
“Quite the opposite, sir”
“’I’se told I was selling to a doctor. ‘Oo’re you?”
“I am a doctor. Elizabeth is my name. And yours, sir?” She says with unconcealed disdain. Educated gentleman he is, he overlooks it.
“I’d be Bill. And wha’s a woman be doin’ as a doc’or anyway?”
“With any luck, sir, earning enough to avoid a career such as yours. Also, I would be partial to overthrowing gender conventions.”
He stares blankly.
“If you ain’t able to be payin’ me Miss –“
She produces a wad of cash.
“Will this be sufficient?”
Without awaiting a reply, she pulls my cart away, leaving Bill’s mouth so open, I fear, he might contract diptheria.
As my lifeless eyes watch her hand, I am stuck by the simplicity of the matter: such slender fingers surely have greater precision with a scalpel than male claws. London should be employing women as doctors! What a time to be alive! (Ahem). I would, however, be lying if I said being dissected appealed to me, but there is hardly anything I can do about it. Ah, well. All in the name of science I suppose.