Two Envelopes And A Phone

“But now the streets were not like the streets she knew. They were so silent: and so empty. On the doorsteps, little groups of milk bottles huddled with their dirty white collars, waiting for the roundsman to collect them next morning and take them off to be washed and spruced up and sent out on duty again… In the areas, the dustbins spilled forth unsightly contents, relentless reminders of man’s mortality: now and again the air still gave a tiny sigh, and a whiff of decay was borne away upon the breeze. The plane trees rustled, whispering a message from the dustbins: ‘All is rottenness, all is death…’, the high street lamps cast shadows in angled walls that seemed as black and bottomless as eternity. A couple reeling home late from a party were swallowed up by a dark doorway: already the glow and the rapture were fading—tomorrow there would be sick headaches and queasy tummies… Beauty vanishes—beauty passes…Only the cats were heedless and unafraid, darting across the patchwork shadows of the streets on plush-cushioned, soundless paws. What threat had death and decay and nothingness?—to a sleek, suave gentleman with nine lives before him and every one packed with adventure that had nothing to do with death—on the contrary!”
― Christianna Brand, Death of Jezebel