Oh, How We Drift

Chapter Ten

10.

Chris exited the elevator, the stench of the sewer hitting him like a solid brick wall. He clasped a hand over his pale, skinny nose, his eyes sweltering from the smell. Millicent perched on his shoulder, luckily her nose couldn't quite pick up the horrific waft of flowing sewage. "I guess they only use this pipe during the day, Jesus H. Christ!" Chris said with a cough, walking down the pipe, sewage flowing beneath the metal grate he walked upon, the thick air clouding his nostrils, "Did you HAVE to bring her this way?" He asked his crow, the bird offering a humoured chirp in response.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Chris eventually reached the ladder to the surface, climbing the metal rungs towards the top of the shaft where a light shone through two holes in the manhole cover. He heaved the cover off and poked his head out of the hole, emerging into Canterbury, peering around at his surroundings. Suddenly the whoosh of a car rang throughout his ear as his head was nearly taken off by a passing Land Rover, Chris yelled and lost his grip on the ladder, tumbling down the shaft onto the metal grating below.

His second climbing attempt went much smoother, and within no time he found himself stood in the road on the surface, "I knew there was a reason I took the graveyard shifts, this place is even busier than home during the day." Millicent squawked in agreement as the pair walked down the pavement, looking significantly out of place on this strangely sunny winter's day. Chris, dressed in his black blazer, grey shirt and black tie, looked as if he was heading to some sort of Victorian Gothic funeral as a morbid crow handler; Millicent perched on his shoulder, staring round at her surroundings, the shine of sunlight an unfamiliar sight to her.

"Okay," Chris said, "You found her before, so find her again." He looked at the bird who stared back at him with a blank expression, Chris ran his hands over his face in exasperation, "For God's sake woman, can't you just lend me a hand this once? You seem to care about her so, for her sake, take me to her apartment." Millicent looked back at him with accusing eyes, as if trying to assess his trustworthiness; the two had only known each other fifty years, which to humans might seem an abnormally long lifespan for a crow, but in Millicent's world was a mere blink of an eye.

Something in Chris' emerald eyes glinted of honesty however, and the bird suddenly flapped her wings, launching herself high into the air and down the road. Chris trailed behind, keeping the white glow of her tail feather in his vision as she turned him down the busy streets.

The hustle and bustle of the daytime activities caught him off guard; there were joggers in the streets, queues of cars along a two lane road honking their horns and flaring their exhausts, there was the noise of sirens, church bells and distant laughter. He brushed shoulders with a stranger on the street and stared at them as they kept on walking, seemingly unaware of his presence. He began to wonder if he had actually needed to stop time at all when he'd made his visits before, everyone seemed so wrapped up in their own little reality that he doubted anyone would've noticed a man carrying away another's soul into a whimsical elevator. Suddenly Millicent crossed the road, continuing down a narrow lane towards a large cluster of apartment buildings.

Chris stepped out in the road, squeezing between the traffic, inhaling the fumes pumping out from the car engines, the smell of dirty air filling his nose. He turned down the lane, noticing the street sign 'Purham Avenue', only to see Millicent perched on a fence a few doors down.

"This is it?" He asked, Millicent squawked in response, pressing her beak against the number 33 and sounding a buzzer inside the door, "What'd you do that for? Couldn't you have waited at least five seconds?" He said in a huff, cut off before he could say anything more by the noise of footsteps inside the apartment.