Newford Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

a peace in my soul that I
desperately need after having had my nose up close to a canvas for
far too long.
    Any part of the city will do, but Old
Market’s the best. I love it here, especially at this time of
night. There’s a stillness in the air and even the houses and shops
seem to be holding their breath. All I can hear is the sound of my
boots on the cobblestones. One day I’m going to move into one of
the old brick buildings that line these streets—it doesn’t matter
which one; I love them all. As much for where they are, I suppose,
as for what they are.
    Because Old Market’s a funny place. It’s
right downtown, but when you step into its narrow, cobblestoned
streets, it’s like you’ve stepped back in time to an older, other
place. The rhythms are different here. The sound of traffic seems
to disappear far more quickly than should be physically possible.
The air tastes cleaner and it still carries hints of baking bread,
Indonesian spices, cabbage soups, fish and sausages long after
midnight.
    On a night like this I don’t even bother to
change. I just go out in my paint-stained clothes, the scent of my
turps and linseed trailing along behind me. I don’t worry about how
I look because there’s no one to see me. By now, all the cafés are
closed up and except for the odd cat, everybody’s in bed, or
checking out the nightlife downtown. Or almost everybody.
    I hear the sound of their wings first—loud
in the stillness. Then I see them, a pair of large crows that swoop
down out of the sky to dart down a street no wider than an
alleyway, just ahead of me.
    I didn’t think crows were nocturnal, but
then they’re a confusing sort of animal at the best of times. Just
consider all the superstitions associated with them. Good luck, bad
luck—it’s hard to work them all out.
    Some say that seeing a crow heralds a
death.
    Some say a death brings crows so that they
can ferry us on from this world to the next.
    Some say it just means there’s a change
coming.
    And then there’s that old rhyme: One for
sorrow, two for mirth…
    It gets so you don’t know what to think when
you see one. But I do know it’s definitely oh-so-odd to see them at
this time of night. I can’t help but follow in their wake. I don’t
even have to consider it; I just go, the quickened scuff of my
boots not quite loud enough to envelop the sound of their
wings.
    The crows lead me through the winding
streets, past the closed shops and cafés, past the houses with
their hidden gardens and occasional walkways overhead that join
separate buildings, one to the other, until we’re deep in Old
Market, following a steadily-narrowing lane that finally opens out
onto a small town square.
    I know this place. Christy used to come here
and write sometimes, though I don’t think he’s done it for a while.
And he’s certainly not here tonight.
    The square is surrounded on three sides by
tall brick buildings leaning against each other, cobblestones
underfoot. There’s an old-fashioned streetlight in the center of
the square with a wrought iron bench underneath, facing the river.
On the far side of the river I can barely see Butler Common, the
wooded hills beyond its lawns, and on the tops of the hills, a
constellation of twinkling house lights.
    By the bench is an overturned shopping cart
with all sorts of junk spilling out of it. I can make out bundles
of clothes, bottles and cans, plastic shopping bags filled with who
knows what, but what holds my gaze is the man lying beside the
cart. I’ve seen him before, cadging spare change, pushing that cart
of his. He looks bigger than he probably is because of the layers
of baggy clothes, though I remember him as being portly anyway.
He’s got a tuque on his head and he’s wearing fingerless gloves and
mismatched shoes. His hairline is receding, but he still has plenty
of long, dirty-blond hair. His stubble is just this side of an
actual beard, greyer than his hair. He’s lying face-up, staring