Jessica’s Gothic Romance Rides Again!

Smog filled the air and couldn’t stop until it felt like smoke entering in under a door. The streetlamps glowed orange. It was a stereotypical murder mystery scene, right down to the steps clicking in well-polished heels down the empty pavement. Clip clop. Clip. Clop.

Silence otherwise. The man didn’t really seem to breathe. His cloak tied up around his chin to ward off the December air. Northern Europe could be cruel to beggars e’er Christmas. No one at all on the street, though. No Dickensian cheer, or even bleakness.

He passed St. James’ Park and thought he owned the world. When no one else was there to disturb his thoughts, he could make himself believe he owned the still pond broken into ripples only by swan wings. Just like his footsteps on the pavement. This was his world, this place of shadows and light. His imagination owned it all. He was not even English. He did not dare open his mouth and break his own little reality. But what if he were English, and not from Yonkers? Would he find these five minutes before midnight as magical as he did? Or would it just be another late night walk home from the pub after last call?

A few blocks over Big Ben sang in his tower and a harsh wind whipped past the buildings from the Thames. December in London and it was beginning to snow. ‘Snow, snow, snow…’ Ben said.

He would not be going back to her flat. She’d kicked him out this afternoon when the grey sun glinted harshly off of office windows. It seemed harsh and clinical, somehow like this night, but a lot less inky. The night was undulating, and honestly if he couldn’t find a hotel, he could talk his feet into walking around ’til daybreak. Ribbons and roses and leaves scattering on the ground. He was stuck in a Romantic nightmare.

Oh, ridiculous. Ah, fool-hearted. No one else walked on the street because no one else waltzed with madness at midnight. He did and he felt it in his heart. Maybe if he walked til morning he would find his heart exploding in the modernity of the Underground thrumming beneath his feet.