He watched them. Skipping down the street, one look back. Ashcolored children hobbling down the gloom. This winter come, gray season here in the welter of sootstained fog hanging over the city like a biblical curse, cheerless medium in which the landscape blears like Atlantis on her lightless seafloor dimly through eel’s eyes. Bell toll in the courthouse tower like a fogwarning on some shrouded coast. A burnt smell in the air compounded of coalsoot and roast coffee. Small birds move through the glazed atmosphere with effort.
