Quick and Painless: A Satirical Reimagining of the Invention of the Guillotine

March 25, 1792

March 24, 1792

My Dearest, Lonnie,

The Mistress is no longer. 

She is no longer a mistress. Nor is she alive. Please, allow me to explain.

After the outburst on Monday, the Mistress, who is no longer the mistress, resided to her room with all the wine in the house.

I paid no attention to her.

Instead, I sat under the dining room table with a candle and my son and wrote you a letter. Romeo was scared and in shock. He wouldn't talk to me and he wouldn't sleep. The poor boy chose to hide under the very table that Antoine decided to use to examine Anaïs. The sound of metal and the slicing of skin did nothing to help his anxiety.

I'm not quite sure when we decided to sleep, or if it was even our decision. All I'm sure of is that I didn't plan on waking up. 

That plan was crushed when Étinne crouched under the table, looking at us with the pure face of confusion. 

"Andreas?" he asked, "What are you..."

I held my finger over my lips, "Shhhh... Romeo's asleep."

"Why are you under a table?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

So I told him about everything. How good my day had been going well, and how it took a turn for the worst. I told him about all the broken china in the parlor, the mistress wasting away in wine, how Anaïs has a lump on her forehead from the candelabra spearing and how Romeo was freaked out by the whole ordeal and had confined himself under the table.

Étinne just blinked a lot and stared at me.

"Well, shit," he remarked. 

I nodded slowly, "indeed, shit," And then lighter, "how was your night?"

He looked confused but answered anyway saying, "Fine. The baby cried too much, but according to Cele, that's perfectly normal. I love the kid, but my god, she knows how to scream."

"She's probably hungry."

 "Aren't we all? You don't see me crying," Étinne joked. And then he pursed his lips and looked almost serious for a second, "I have a baby, now. I'm not allowed to cry."

There's a silent oath that every parent makes, and that's that they can't cry, not even alone. No one talks about it, but it exists, without question. You can't be strong for someone else when you aren't even strong enough for yourself. 

I talked it over with Étinne and we decided that we were going to check on the girls. Antoine was nowhere to be found, so we didn't know what else to do, our jobs relied on him telling us what we need to do.

I pulled Romeo out from under the table and laid him properly in bed. If Master Louis wasn't here then I had full intention of letting him sleep all day.

We decided to check on Anaïs first. She was in her room, lied out on the bed like a corpse in a coffin. Her face was bruised and her left eye swollen shut. Her hair framed her head in a tangled crown. 

"She looks dead," I said, not actually sure if she wasn't.

Éttine must've been thinking the same thing. He took a broomstick and poked her foot. She pulled the foot away.

Not dead. 

Éttine stared straight at her, "Is there still a mess in the Parlor?

"Probably," I returned.