Lottery
Bustle. Activity. Life.
Daren’t stop and eyeball—watch eager to move stragglers along with sticks. Run across granite flagstones, avoiding trams and carriages, keeping head down, minding own business. Smell of roses thick in air—gentry of Galleon burn incense in street to perfume air when wind blows from west. Pass Galleon’s villas on way to breakfast. Cross plazas crawling with greenery, tended by legions of gardeners. Wealthy and titled dine with artists and poets, throwing promises of money or fame into conversation, buying portraits or sonnets by yard. Aristocrats exchange greetings greased by etiquette of class: clothes, gestures, language.
Keep to quiet back streets where gaming houses mopping up from night before, but often must cross open avenues or crescents that separate villas and mansions. Mindful that heading towards blood-red stain in sky, blotting out eastern horizon; but little option—all roads lead to Rome.
Arms itch and burn, urge to scratch unbearable. Keep walking.
Get grip on self and pass Taliesyn Fair. Locked and empty; too early for couples to play at love, to share fantasies. Turn back on fair as belly still grumbling and cut through Wax Street Market. Frantic with shouts of traders and customers bartering over goods. Pass stalls selling spices by bag, fruit, meat, household wares, vegetables, textiles, fish, books, maps, pets, all for sale at competitive prices. Help self to apples when back of coster turned: juicy and crisp; belly rumbles in appreciation.
Eyeball POET coming in opposite direction with young woman dressed like gypsy. Recognise black hair and velvet suit; all smiles, trying to impress lady friend. Painful reminder of loss; rub finger nail over stump; six months on scab not yet healed.
POET eyeballs self and calls out name of old, beckons anxiously with perfect hands. Turn away, push through crowd. Much agitated by coincidence. Forget POET. Don’t remember name. Matters not to self; only to Quill. And Quill gone; betrayed and lost.
Press on, will soon reach patch. Above self, domes, towers, jumbles of tall, slope-roofed buildings jostle for space, crowding out blue of sky.
At last, eyeball flaming chimneys of Chemytown, alchemists’ quarter. Stacks thin as needles pierce air, bleeding dark smears of smoke across sky. Air thick and hot, lungs churn in protest. Circle abomination called The Pit and settle in patch on Boyle’s Law. Patch free from competition, no Babble folk found here. Lay coat in shadows where old man Bellamy sat before illness filled lungs with black fluid. Last words spoken lost in fit of coughing.
Remember first words Bellamy spoke to self; first friendly words heard upon inglorious arrival in city: Take out your tin cup and place it at your feet. Stare only at the ground. Do not look up. Nod your head once for each coin dropped in the cup. Keep your eyeballs peeled for the watch and be ready to scarper at any moment.
Wise words kept safely in head of self, only one who remembers Bellamy. Wizards and soothsayers pass every day, drop coins but give not a fig for beggars. Give out of secret guilt for dark arts practised.
Bellamy was philosopher of street. Said that giving money to beggars is sacrament. Donated coins like Ave Maria of confession—atonement for sins committed. By accepting money (nodding of head is part of rite) street people absolve sins, perform spiritual service. Funny man, Bellamy.
Miss him.
Wizards always lost in thought, forever plotting new experiments. Wear dark glasses to cover shrunken eyes, whites eaten up; hide pasty bodies in folds of heavy cloaks. Eyeball wizards across street, scuttling from shop to shop, buying vials or sacks, before back to laboratories to perform dark rituals. All black arts found in Chemytown. Rattle metal cup; good for business.
Pass day without incident until shadows lengthen across street, shops display closed signs in windows and passers-by dwindle to trickle. No more money to be had for today; no more penance given. Pick up coat and tin cup, heavy with change. Three silver and seven copper coins. Four dollars. Save one silver coin for bribe tomorrow. By length of shadows still too early for final appointment. Decide to stroll along river embankment like any common citizen after good day at work.
High tide, and Lebe has risen on swell, lapping two feet below embankment. Boats moored along river bank bob contentedly as water flows by. Working boats outnumbered by evening pleasure barges carelessly steaming up and down stream.
Three Arches Bridge bathed in red glow of sun. Join merrymakers parading themselves above green-brown water below. Eyeball old man Rustblood sketching ornamentation of bridge underside from moored rowboat, tongue stuck out in concentration, oblivious of bright, young people above.
