Day 557

You never forget the sight of old London's smog.
It's like a mist of sorts only it clings to your clothes, your hair - even your lungs.
Every breath you take becomes smog-tainted within minutes of being there.
London folk don't even notice it anymore.

They seem to blend in with the smog perfectly and at a glance you don't realise how many there are.
Even their skin has a greyish tinge to it, like that of a corpse or car-driven snow.
There are so many people lurking in the smog without quite realising it.
They are surprised when you claim they sneak about and drift like lost souls.

Perhaps that's what they are after all this time.
Who can say what the smog is doing to them beyond vague health concerns and pollutions.
You see, the London smog isn't quite like anything else.
It makes you feel things, see things that shouldn't be or maybe have always been.

Out of the hostel window I can see large fins drifting through the murky street.
They too are grey and twice the height of an average person.
You can always tell a tourist from a Londoner on days like these.
Their sheer terror sticks out like a sore thumb among London's apathy.

After all, it's a city built on the deaths of countless nobodies - what's a smog thing in comparison?
I've seen them fed by people who might as well be fixtures for the legends they've acquired.
The steps of St Paul's is the best to go to see the most known figure.
She slumps like a ragdoll topped with a faded Manchester United bobble hat.

Every smog-drenched day she's out there feeding them.
Their fins circle her like cartoon sharks, up close you can see how leathery and wet they are.
She tosses out handfuls of limpets, caught from the Thames itself every evening.
According to her the smog things like them because the crunch of their shell is like bones.

She says there's an organisation, of which she is a major participant of, that feeds these creatures.
It keeps them from seeking out actual bones, says that the London death toll has halved since they
started their morning and evening patrols when the smog drenches the city.
As I went to walk away from her she smiled, her teeth jagged like glass shards.

Londoners are a strange lot, full of quirks - in both personality and appearance.
It's a part of London's charm, it's what the smog causes.
Seeps into your every pore and leaves you grey and unusual, slightly inhuman sometimes.
After you've been in the smog a few days you begin to crave its cold, sticky grasp in your lungs.