Plender Commons was a long, narrow, mostly uninteresting, fog-darkened street that managed to just ever so slightly evade the heart of London. The great metropolis of ominous, smoke-blackened towers that pierced the sky had many of these small, unnoticed streets hidden in its depths. However, despite its seclusion, Plender Commons still bustled with activity. From above, the constant hum of engines from the airships that wove their way between the iron citadels rained down upon the street. Women – ladies, to use a more appropriate term – sailed up and down the length of the boulevard, confident in their supremacy and dressed in luxurious colourful corset-dresses. Almost all of their faces were made up of layers of white powder that made their faces pale and ghoulish. They all covered their heads with some sort of oversized bonnet which usually in turn held an oversized exotic feather and decorations. Men dressed in all kinds of forms and colours of suit seemed to outnumber the female wayfarers, however. Most seemed to be businessmen and for the most part they brushed past the women on their way to important meetings and business occasions. Their faces were stoic and gruff; beaten down by the daily routine of office life. Many of the men also wore headwear; it seemed almost no-one in the street was without some form of hat. Unlike the women and their lavish bonnets, the men wore simple black top or bowler hats. There was not much to say for what appeared to be the richer types, but there was even less to say for the wretched poor. There was a share of scruffier, poorer types in the street: urchins and beggars who stuck close to the edges of the pavement where the buildings cast them in shadow; unacknowledged by the public who seemed to pass by so closely.
I sat at an expertly-polished wooden table next to a window that filtered in a warm, orange light from the avenue outside, which was dimly lit by gas lamps despite it being only half past eight o'clock in the morning. I watched the crowd go by outside the window with a sort of vague interest in their petty lives. On my table, alongside my plate of untouched eggs and unbroken toast were a knife, fork and pistol. The knife and fork shined in comparison to the dull iron, blocky framed point-seventy-eight inch calibre revolver. I sat cross-legged, holding a that morning's newspaper above my lap yet not actually reading what drivel the writers of the Circadian Post had to drool out. My interests were otherwise engaged to a young lady sitting in a teashop on the opposite side of the street.
She too had taken a seat by the window and was busy watching the crowd pass on by below us. She seemed at odds with many of the other ladies that graced Plender Commons with their presence; dressed rather scrappily and boyishly by comparison. The long window allowed me to observe that she wore only a pair of shorts; the type that would be supplied to soldiers: a stale green article that had been cut short so as not to even reach her knees; a stark contrast to the full-length dresses of her peers. Instead of a formal corset she wore some kind of oversized stringy cardigan over a rough-spun white shirt; instead of a bonnet on her head were a pair of grubby, thick-rimmed goggles – the type of eyewear a pilot might wear. She sat at her table with only a cup of what I could only guess at the contents of – most likely tea. The only other objects on the table were the saucer the cup sat upon and a small leather bound notebook with a pen strapped to the side with a strip of cloth. The girl seemed to take no notice of the book – ignoring it's being there as she did every morning. Her sombre mood seemed only to enhance my certainty of her innate natural beauty. The slight sadness in her almost blank, unwavering expression brought a certain neutrality to her features that would not normally be seen. When she conversed with people she smiled with a smile so enchanting one could not help but smile in return it seemed. She captured the attention of the waiters and waitresses who served her each morning without giving any indication of noticing she did so.
Instead of doing anything meaningful, she had continually stirred her drink since it arrived, staring blankly out of the window. Eventually she slowed her stirring, and let the creamy bubbles on top swirl around the cup for few seconds before lifting the saucer and knocking back almost the entirety of its contents.
