I sat alone in the damp basement.  I stared at the flickering shadows of the fireplace.  They danced and licked the basement walls and ceiling.  The small room seemed large and foreboding from where I sat.  I had a jar of warm gin on my lap that I had been sipping most of the day.  My throat and chest were warm from the gin.  The rest of me was cold as ice; a cold wind blew through the gaping hole right in the middle of me.   

   The hole had been getting exponentially larger in the last few years.  Early in my life I could plug the hole with booze, women, or both.  Those plugs were now too small for the hole.  The last few weeks I had gone to great measures to plug the hole.  I had begun doing the things I had previously been ashamed for thinking.  My hands shook when recalling my actions and in the same thought the rush of desire to repeat the actions took over.    

    My body grew a bit warmer when I thought of prowling the cobbled streets again tonight.  The time grew nearer for a decision to be made.  If I were to do it tonight I had to act swiftly.  The window of opportunity was small.  I had long studied the paths of the women I stalked and the buffoonish police that were hired to protect them.  If the timing was right, the task was easy to pull off.  If I became to cocky, I might push these boundaries.  I knew I shouldn't, but I always pushed everything I did to the extreme.  It was my nature.  It was the only way to temporarily plug the hole.  

   I strode to the apothecary and pulled out my leather kit of mayhem.  I sharpened the dagger and long scalpel and hid them in my side vest pocket.  My hands were shaking with anticipation.  I knew, after I was done tonight, I could sleep; for the hole would be plugged and the wind would stop blowing through me.  I grabbed the jar of warm gin and threw it down my throat.  The warmth radiated through my body.  I was ready.  I was ready to do the things only pure evil could do.  If only someone understood why I did these things, they might have some compassion.  The hole was getting bigger.  I had to leave.  I must sleep later.  Maybe when I awoke I could paint again.  Yes!  Paint!  That's what I could try again.  That worked for a time.  First, I must plug the hole with murder, then sleep, and then I could try to paint.  I threw my cape across my shoulders, flung open the basement door, and headed out to the dirty streets of Whitechapel.