To this day I find it ironic. How a man put poppies on Jane Doe's grave. He had only seen her once, and for all he knew, he was the only one that ever did. The dreary grey of London had a certain charm that blinds people from the grey things that lurk in the alleys. Not quite people, but too cruel to be animals. The creatures that mucked the sewers and seemed to flow from the shadows of clap-boarded houses.

Jane Doe had been one of these. But it hadn't always been that way. She had been waiting for her love to return from the sea. But the sea betrayed her and took her lover, leaving only a letter of his passing, which was lost to the wind and rain. She was left with nothing but heartbreak. At first she tried to find work, but it soon became apparent that the only work for soot faced girl was tailoring to the lusts of unfaithful men. And this, she couldn't do. So she began to gather the grey dust of the city that corrupted everything, turning it the same tone of lonliness. The layer of filth and smothering poverty that grew upon her city like ivy on stone. It soon began to grow in her, until she became a grey creature. But in this dark and foreign land she found the comfort of a pipe and a ratty wool blanket, and a new kind of soot became her best friend. It lended color to the world, but only for a while. Among the colors was the richest red, which made her want to climb into it and exist in the depths of its shade.

For many months she only visited the red through the pipe she held in her hands. But soon, the land of grey lost her favor and she surrendered to her pipe and needles.

So I will always wonder how the gravedigger knew to put poppies on her stone so that she would have a friend left in the world to wilt over her grave. A beautiful, rich, red. Which stands sharply against the grey stone. Its this that made me realize why Jane had surrendered to it. The poppies red is a tricky beast, and even now I am drawn to it. But my own time will come, and I will join Jane and I will ask her about every poppy she found and how it felt to dance in a field of red.

But until then, I will watch her poppies turn grey as my bed springs screech and the doctors check me less and less. But I'll remember those poppies until I find her, and when I do, I'll finally tell her about my trip over the ocean, and how she was not a Jane Doe to me.