Smoke And Mirrors

II.

Two o'clock and walking through familiar London

–or what was familiar London before the cursor deleted certain certainties-

I watch a suit and tie man giving suck

to the Psion Organizer lodged in his breast pocket,

its serial interface like a cool mouth hunting his chest for sustenance,

familiar feeling, and I'm watching my breath steam in the air.

Cold as a witch's tit these days is London,

you'd never think it was November,

and from underground the sounds of trains rumble.

Mysterious: tube trains are almost legendary in these times,

stopping only for virgins and the pure of heart,

first stop Avalon, Lyonesse, or the Isles of the Blessed. Maybe

you get a postcard and maybe you don't.

Anyway looking down any chasm demonstrates conclusively

there is no room under London for subways;

I warm my hands at a pit.

Flames lick upward.

Far below a smiling demon spots me, waves, mouths carefully,

as one does to the deaf, or distant, or to foreigners.

Its sales performance is spotless: It mimes a Dwarrow Clone,

mimes software beyond my wildest,

Albertus Magnus ARChived on three floppies,

Claviculae Solomon for VGA, CGA, four-colour or monochrome,

mimes

and mimes

and mimes.

The tourists lean over the riftways to Hell,

staring at the damned

(perhaps the worst part of damnation;

eternal torture is bearable in noble silence, alone,

but an audience, eating crisps and chips and chestnuts,

an audience who aren't even really that interested…

They must feel like something at the zoo,

the damned).

Pigeons flutter around Hell, dancing on the updrafts,

race memory perhaps telling them

that somewhere around here there should be four lions,

unfrozen water, one stone man above;

the tourists cluster around.

One does a deal with the demon: a ten-pack of blank floppies for his soul.

One has recognised a relative in the flames and is waving:

Coooee! Coooeee! Uncle Joseph! Look, Nerissa, it's your Great-Uncle Joe

that died before you was born,

that's him down there, in the Slough, up to his eyes in boiling scum

with the worms crawling in and out of his face.

Such a lovely man.

We all cried at his funeral.

Wave to your uncle, Nerissa, wave to your uncle.

The pigeon man lays limed twigs on the cracked paving stones,

then sprinkles breadcrumbs and waits.

He raises his cap to me.

This morning's pigeon, sir, I trust it was satisfactory?"

I allow that it was and toss him a golden shilling

(which he touches surreptitiously to the iron of his gauntlet,

checking for fairy gold, then palms).

Tuesday, I tell him. Come on Tuesdays.