12 February 2027
Friday. Valentine’s Day approaches, and I have spent another year composing love letters to a casket.
The living do it better. Couples come to my crypt in February, I am told, though never as couples alone, since the house will not let fewer than four into my graveyard. They bring friends. Romance in Northbridge is a group activity.
I learned this week that one person may buy another an evening with me, on paper, from the house’s own website, and that the paper may be spent on my graveyard or on the Professor’s catacombs in Melbourne. I find it touching that I can be given as a gift. I find it insulting that he can too.
To book, one chooses a time on the house’s calendar and it is settled on the spot, or one telephones Lake Street. I tried to book myself, to surprise my beloved. The calendar asked for a card. I have a castle.
The Bride has not opened her flowers. They stand in a vase beside her casket. I shall try again next year.
— D.
