A Walk in London

The wind blew snow into her eyes, warm breath rising to steam around her face as she headed into London. Strands of her hair pulled loose from her hood, swirling around her face like the branches of a weeping willow caught in a storm. She glanced over at the buildings lining the street, squinting against the dimming light & falling snow. They seemed patched together, the old & the new in some sort of a nonsensical, poetic collage. The modern age juxtaposed against history. Concrete layered over cobblestone. Who walked this route before her, head down to the weather, hurrying here & there?

An old magic was alive in these streets. It seemed the shops and church steeples knew something she did not. Some great story though forgotten, alive and well if one only took the time to uncover it again.

The snow fell lighter, but the gusting wind pushed her faster than she wanted to travel, hastening her step along the well-worn path. She looked over to see spring primroses, their bright faces stretching from a window box, covered in a dusting of lightweight snow. She sighed into her coat, nestling her collar, keenly aware that the flowers could do nothing to escape the weather. She turned down the lane towards the docks, the snow undisturbed & pristine on the wooden bridges and metal planks lining the marina. She trekked along the Thames in darkness, the sound of her boots deadened by the covering of snow.

The lantern lights glinted ahead, twinkling warmly as the snow came down. Lanterns that once held flame, gas, and heat. She paused under one, casting her eyes above as the snow fell quietly now, shielded by the pubs that lined the dock.

This is what it felt like to be a part of something, a small supporting role in the rich, layered tale of a place steeped in time and experience, change and history. Though the world was still, the streets whispered. Ghostly impressions of an age past, lying just beyond the surface. Wonderment. Tragedy. Whimsy. Adventure & enterprise. The spectral stories of the long gone, but still here. Legends that built the city, growing taller than the skyline itself, speckled with the ancient and the new.