Report: This To Be History’s Last-Ever Reference To 19th-Century Seamstress Florence Shadewell

NEW YORK—Noting that her name shall be unspoken from this moment until the end of the Earth, History decreed Tuesday that this very instance shall constitute its final mention of seamstress Florence Shadewell (1808-1872) who lived her life in the poorer environs of London, dying childless and unloved, without accomplishment or achievement aside from the workmanlike production and serviceable mending of women’s garments. The consignment of her legacy to oblivion being therefore no great loss to either History or, indeed, to Humanity, her image and memory have already began fading from Man’s collective consciousness, all memory of her existence a guttering flame fated to fade completely in but a handful of moments. These very words flickering before you constitute the last invocation of Florence Shadewell by the Universe at large, and, once read, shall mark her true and final death as she slips eternally from the mind’s eye. No further development is expected in this matter, as you and you alone are the final soul to see these words, and now everything Shadewell ever was or hoped to be slips silently below the dark and shadowed waves of eternity.