It’s dark. It’s raining. It’s cold and windy. It’s only early in the evening, about 6:30. Come out the front door of the hotel to the wet street that’s lit by street lights. Turn left walk on the sidewalk, past the huge cement truck yard. The highway here is very, very busy with speeding traffic as we walk to the pedestrian light at the corner.
Something’s different. Cars are going the wrong way! Be careful! Wait for the light to change. Dash across to other side. Go straight on to Narrow Lane. It parallels the river Thames. This is the old side of the city, reclaimed. No people walking here. Little stores, walkways through and behind some of the reclaimed buildings.
It’s lonely. We are headed for dinner at the Grapes pub in Limehouse.
If we didn’t know it was there waiting for us, I would be apprehensive about walking further. See steps winding down to the water from an unremarkable building. On the other side, the overflow from the river churns up against old lock gates.
I go inside the old building and climb the stairs. It’s not even furnished, yet it’s so much like home, not unlike on our street at Second and Arch in Philadelphia. An extra place to hide away in.
It was dark up there and looked as though no one has been using it. Paintings were stacked randomly around the room and I went to search for a good one. I was disappointed to find that every single one was a poor painting of some part of the anatomy of some woman’s body. There was one painting of a man making a funny face that was in reality an ugly picture of an ugly man making a funny face. I looked around some more and found not one that was worth any extra perusal or thought.
As I looked around the room, I suddenly wondered why I thought that I should stay and try to find an artwork of beauty. I thought perhaps this house, since it is a very old place and hot, that maybe it is haunted. I looked around and concentrated on the seventh rung of some kind of ladder for knowledge of the spirits that inhabit this building. I was disappointed to find that there did not appear to be any. So I took a last look around and opened myself to communication with any spirit that lives there. Unfortunately, there was no response and there was no feeling that anything other than me inhabiting that room.
So I walked to the top of the stairs and started down, taking care that my bad ankle does not give away and happy that no bad spirit messed up my gate. I took them one at a time and went to Limehouse to have dinner with my friends.
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