To say Johanna Barker was shocked was an understatement. Just a few hours prior she had been rescued from Fogg's Asylum by the love of her life, Anthony Hope, now she found herself in a mostly unfamiliar building on Fleet Street, standing in the upstair loft of the building. The loft that served as a tonsorial parlor for a barber named Sweeney Todd.
The loft she had almost died in less than a hour ago...
You see, in spite of her preferred arrangement Johanna was left alone in this loft by Anthony where she would witness the murder of a Beggar Woman and her revolting father, Judge Turpin. Unfortunately for her, Todd found out she was there when she tried to run and she barely escaped from him and the deadly call of his razors.
When she came back with Anthony and the police they found another horrific sight in the bakehouse. In the dim room only lit by the light of the oven she could see the body of Turpin on the floor, but that wasn't what drew her attention. She saw Mr. Todd sitting on the floor holding the body of the beggar he had killed and above him a little boy slashing his throat open. Todd fell to the floor with a thud, the third body she heard fall like that today...
As Anthony talked with the investigating police Johanna felt herself go up the stairs to the loft. Even though it was against her better judgment, something inside her just needed to go. She was visibly shaking as she opened the door and sat back down in the barber chair she sat in prior to wait for her lover. In an instant, traumatic visions of what had happened filled her head. Johanna jumped up in panic.
"Oh, this was a horrible idea!" She thought to herself.
She began walking out towards the exit when she noticed something, her frantic movements caused a floorboard to come loose. Curiosity peaked, Johanna sat down on the floor and pulled the floorboard up: There was a compartment underneath the floorboard. Inside that compartment was a pile of soggy, moldy papers...While not typically this nosy, Johanna was desperate to find meaning.
Why?
Why did she almost die here?
What was Mr. Todd up to?
Why did this place look familiar?
With a shaky hand and a sigh, Johanna grabbed the papers...
They appeared to be letters, old letters...
Letters from a forgotten time, letters of a forgotten man and his story.
Johanna opened the oldest letter and began reading. After almost 17 years Johanna can finally learn of her real father, Benjamin Barker and the man he became. It was time to attend the tale she didn't even realize she was in...Maybe then, internal peace can be found on Fleet Street, or at least in the Barker clan, or what now remained of them...
YOU ARE READING
The Letter
Poetry"And in that darkness when I'm blind with what I can't forget..." A series of letters written by the wrongfully imprisoned man who would become "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" addressed to his beloved wife, daughter, and best friend. (Based on th...
