The suicide note of a young Victorian-era prostitute of New York, in its entirety:

Please bury me in my silk dress and bracelets

A simple request, yet what do you think are the chances that she was, in fact, buried in her silk dress and bracelets? The extant record (and this suicide note is the only proof we have that she ever existed) remains silent on the point. Those who sell love are often profoundly alone, never more than in their moment of need.

No explanations, no good-byes, no bequests. Regrets? We don’t know. Perhaps she regretted life itself, and all the rest was simply more of the same.

Did she even know who would find the note? Did she trust that person, was it someone she felt was a friend, or did she simply hope, in her last, most perfectly hopeless moments, that an unknown someone would find and honour the last request of an anonymous whore who probably looked so, so pretty in her silk dress and bracelets?

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