A bit about things…

“There she was, standing like a vixen on the hind legs of an albatross, waiting for a timestamp to certify the end all and be all of her trip, leaning against a lamp post and checking her watch so thoroughly you might think the light above her was shining down on that little timepiece like the sun on a dial built just for her.

She flipped her hair back and looked up and down the alley, the empty alley, the barren span of tipped over trash cans and cigarette butt-lined cracks in the pavement. No one was there. No one was watching. No one but me.

I stood in the shadows, half created by a sturdy life spent spying on those with secrets to keep and half by the pitch starkness of my soul having no contrast with an empty cupboard. Her gaze passed right over me, but for her there was nothing more in this corner of tar and dark than an empty hollow sound, and she continued back to looking at her watch.

‘Time isn’t coming,’ I whispered into my own ear as a train came squealing to a halt at the end of the alley. She moved quickly to it, all the while looking over her shoulder to make certain no one was following.

She’d need more than a quick glance and a nice round watch swaying at her hips to see me.

I slipped on board the train and disappeared into the moments between the sizzle of the steam and the clack of the wheels on the iron rails…”

– taken from the diaries of Nick Claythan, Mastermind Detective, Spy, Thief and Delicatessen Owner

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