Provenance Black

The Street Nobody Knows

    Jace had been walking down the normal streets of London at twilight, trying to find a new bar in which he could pick up girls up. He wasn't really paying attention to where the crowd was jostling him, he had his Ipod blaring in his ears and avoiding eye contact with every person on the overcrowded street, lest they think him a thug or thief. He dashed across the road, uncaring of the car horns that honked at him and strode past a cathedral. He didn't pay attention to where he was going, as result he didn't notice entering the suburban areas of the city, nor did he notice the thinning of the crowd. He glanced up and saw he was in a street with no more than a fifty people walking down the sidewalks between old, Victorian tenement buildings. He ducked down an alley between two of the tenements and when he emerged, he was on a cobbled street, that looked no different from any other.

    Jace had continued to walk down the street before noticing that he was alone. He also noticed that there was no electric street lamps, but old victorian gas lamps, and that the light shining down the street was natural lighting from the sun. There were shop on each side of the street, but true to the stereotype of any ghost town, they were all shuttered, with peeling paint and graffiti stains.

    Dusk. That chilling moment before the light goes and everything is plunged into darkness. He only had a few moments of this 'Dusk,' when the light dropped away and he was left in darkness. London, the world, was blacker than pitch. Jace put his hand on the wall of the building next to him and tried to feel his way back to the alley from whence he came. Out of the night, laughter spilled, louder than the music banging in his ears. He removed his earphones and heard that there was footsteps all around him, wheels moving and people talking.

    "Fla-wers, get yer fla-wers!" a cockney accent called from the night in the distance. Up ahead, a gas lamp was lit, casting a phosphorescent glow in the smog. The lamplighter clambered down a ladder, his shadow no larger than two feet tall. Across the road, another lamp was lit by another small shadow. Moving under the lamp that had just been lit, a haggard man moved underneath it, pushing what looked like a trolley underneath the lamp. On top of the trolley was a large rectangular shape covered by a moth eaten, velvet cloth. The haggard man looked over at Jace, smiled crookedly and removed the cloth with a flourish. Under the cloth was a small theatre with a crank on the side of it. He grasped the crank in boney hands and moved it, the curtains parting and rusty music rang out into the street. Jace hadn't realised he'd been pulled towards the animated music box until he saw the miniature figures moving-dancing-to the music that, whilst nice, was ruined by the twing of the wire and a sound like blown bottles. Jace looked around him. All around, the lamps were being lit by the little men, people spilling out into the streets, walking on cobbled pavement and roads. He turned back to the haggard man to find him still grinning at him, his eyes tinged yellow and hooded under unkempt eyebrows. Jace backed away, almost tripping over the curb of the street.

    "Fla-wers, get yer fla-wers!" Jace walked down towards that voice, watching the street in awe as old-fashioned shops opened up down the streets, and goods set up in stalls. Shutters in windows flew up revealing a cobblers, a dress shop, a voodoo and hoodoo shop, even a blood bank was open at this time of night. The flower seller was standing by the latter, her cart overflowing with flowers.

    The crowds were getting thicker now, the people wearing a mix of modern and vintage clothing. Those in vintage seemed deathly pale and some graced him with smiles that promised death. The flower seller-holding a straw basket in thin hands- approached one couple who were entering the blood bank.

    "Flawers fer the loverly lady. Common freshly dead this morn'." Jace thought it was an odd way to sell flowers, after all, who wanted dead ones? The flower seller pushed on, unaware of his confusion. "Brighten up that crypt of yer's, I'll bet."