Jack

Frailty by @ShaunAllan

Mistaken identity.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever had someone tap you on the shoulder to chat, then realise you were not who they thought you were? Have you, yourself, run after a figure, convinced it was a friend or family member, only to discover it wasn't? Were you embarrassed? Horrified? Apologetic?

There's no need to be. The human mind likes the familiar. It is as set in its ways as an old dog, the inability to be taught new tricks hampering its enjoyment of what remains of its life. The human mind has its habits. It interprets the things the eyes see and distorts them to fit its own version of the world. It is almost as if your mind creates its own reality and forgets to tell you you're viewing it.

So the brother is a stranger. The friend is a shocked girl who recoils at the impending assault.

Mistaken identity. It's not a mistake. It's your mind telling you something that isn't real. Isn't true. Your brain is lying to you.

London is dirty. As we leave the nineteenth century, Industry marches us to a bright new dawn, one tarnished by smoke and gilded with the grime of squalor. The Cholera epidemic only a few decades previous, wiped out many who stood tall in the knowledge that they strode supreme through the numerous reforms that were making this city and this country so great. Education. Health. Things that were once the gift of the wealthy were becoming the right of those who simply lived. Drew breath. Existed.

And the smog rolls through the streets, ignorant or uncaring of such advances, dragging with it the vigour of those who it enveloped. It seems to drain the colour from their lives, leaving them grey and insipid. And mistaken.

I see it. I see it all.

I watch the foggy beast crawl through the streets, feeding on the souls of the populace. Perhaps my own soul tastes bitter. Perhaps it is tainted by my own purity. I find myself alone in my ability to be untouched by its vaporous maw. I stand solitary in the face of its prowling mass.

I didn't at first. I blame myself. I was so enthralled by the cloying smog and its effects on my city, I forgot to look. I forgot to notice. My mind ruled my eyes and showed me what it felt I wanted to see rather than what I needed. I felt the draining of London's soul but, initially, was oblivious to its cause. When I realised, it was already too late. Not too late to stop it, but much too late to prevent its beginning. Once, however, I learned to separate actual reality from inferred reality, I leapt into action like a spider to the fly caught in its web.

Perhaps 'leapt' is too strong a word. Haste is not something I am familiar with, a more measured approach being my preference. Time and tide wait for no man, we are told, and I am King Canute in both respects. I can hold back neither, so I feel no compulsion to try. If I attempted to force the issue, I would still age. My feet would, proverbially, still become wet and my crown would be hung up. As such, I did not leap. I did not creep. I walked, calmly, into the battle for London's heart.