Vessel

The city of Stoke was weeping, a soft, persistent rain that clung to the air and the skin, a second, clammy atmosphere. Pavements mirrored a sick sky in fractured glass, and every alleyway held the breath of something ancient and moist. The smell was a living thing, a rich, layered cocktail of wet tarmac, mouldering brick, and the green, sweet rot of unseen parks. Somewhere, a fool had lit a barbecue, and the smoke, a faint ghost of charred flesh and volatile spirits, threaded into it like a whispered secret.