Here’s a bit of a noodle from this morning that I may come back to and extend further. However, extension will require a lot more work as the parallel I used breaks down. Basically, this is a sort of steampunk version of / borrowing from Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood that entered my brain some time ago but woke me up this morning needing some exercise. I’ve yet to work out what character names would go with this so Captain Cat remains as a place holder. This may or may not work better if you read it with a welsh accent!
Under Smoke City
To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless night in the great city, starless and smoke-clogged, the brick chimneys belching and the hunched factories ringing and singing along the way down to the tar-thick, tar-black, crow-black, carrion-swallowing lake. The houses are blind as moles (though moles would not be seen on the shouting, hessian streets) or blind as [Captain Cat] there in the harsh-lit hub by the pump and the town clock, the shops still trading, the Welfare Hall at untold toil. And the lucky few of the choked and jaded town are sleeping now.