canica (5/7)

The wind howled between the crenellations. It bit through the watchman’s uniform I’d stolen. We watched the unlit lanterns in the streets below, the other imposter and I, and waited for the lamplighter to make his rounds. As the sun sank behind the city wall shadows spilled between the houses and market stalls. Soon they were aflood.

Seems to me he’s no man at all, I was saying. Some more elemental thing. One fellow . . .

Dim light edged out into the town square. A lamplighting pole bobbed into the town square, its owner obscured by terraced roofs.

. . . One fellow said that when he looked too long into his eyes he saw stars inside.

The watchman grunted. ‘Seen storm clouds chase him,’ he said.

My gut went cold. I clenched my teeth so as not to shiver. I tried to remember if I had spread that rumour, but there had been so many. I didn’t know.

He’d chosen me. He had found me in the night when rain was tapping on the canvas and led me from my oblivion of nomadic inconsequence. In my head I had placed myself above the others: I had made myself his agent, and myself alone. What a fool I’d been.

I thought back to when I’d first met him. His eyes from across the guardhouse. A few spoken words, a name exchanged. There had been no dark promises, no sour omens. It had not been raining. He had left and for years I had forgotten.

The lamplighter had ambled into view by now. He nicked open a lantern with his hook and manouvred the wick inside.

I remembered his laugh when I’d panicked. Oars knocking. The sloshing to-and-fro of placid waves. It seemed like a long time ago.

Clouds follow no man, I said, resting my arms on the crenellations.

The watchman chuckled. I looked round. He shook his head.

‘That’s just what he said, is all.’