A Knack for City Life

I've live in London since I was an infant and while some don't like it, I've always had a knack for city life.

I see it every time I shut my eyes. I can still imagine the blaring lights of the large screen in Piccadilly Circus gleam over my comparatively miniscule being. The ground I stood on shone brilliant silver due to the monotonous grey tiles being mixed with the intense glow of the screen. I could see the faded imprints of year’s worth of chewing gum people had spat out onto the road. As disgusting as it was, the streets of London wouldn’t be the same without it.

Even now, I can almost smell the cigarette smoke and the distinct scent of fried meat from a nearby takeaway joint. I stood there, small, clutching my mother’s hand. I recall watching the early night partiers enliven the streets with their joyous exclamations. The delight in their gleeful utterances was captivating to me. Most would be rather weary of the clearly intoxicated students, but even at that young age, I’ve always had a knack for city life.

It was more than chilly that night, but in retrospect, the quiet frost of any city night holds the tendency to send a shiver up someone’s spine. The evening was as cold as sticking your bare hand in a freezer and I saw my breath leave my body in a wave of white mist every time I exhaled. As soon as my family and I began walking, the crisp, icy air began to slap me across the face. Nonetheless, we continued to battle against the direction of the evening’s unforgiving wind. My ears began to lose feeling, yet I also felt them ache dully. It was a contradicting consequence to cold exposure. However, despite the discomfort I was feeling, I forced myself to embrace the liveliness around me to grant me a different kind of warmth. An exuberant atmosphere surrounded me; and so I consoled myself with the idea that the people I encountered radiated enough warmth to thaw out anything in their path regardless.
There was the familiar sight of a ‘Burger King’ and ‘Vue Cinema’ while we continued walking through the ebullient crowd. Even the Square’s most ordinary buildings came alive that night, and beamed brighter than a cyclist’s bike lights at midnight. There was an abundance of rugged, brooding artists setting up stands to sell their ‘masterpieces’ to wandering city-goers. The image that sticks out to me, to this day, was a distorted painting of Angelina Jolie. Her head enlarged, while her body had been squeezed onto the rear end of the canvas, taking up no more than a few centimetres. Her lips were comically exaggerated and the extravagant colours echoed the rest of the city perfectly. Perhaps the artist simply enjoyed an abstract view, or perhaps the artwork was an extended metaphor, conversing vanity and egotism. Either way, the paintings made me laugh and quickly took my mind off of the on-going ache from the unbearably cold weather.

Trying to find clarity in the haze that is a childhood memory, I can hear the exasperated honks of cars struggling to find their way through the indomitable traffic. Most of my family began to display expressions of fret as they wondered whether the clamours of tipsy people were shouting with glee or aggression. I, myself, wasn’t confused. I felt nothing but second hand elation as each person reiterated a sense of high spirit.

I probably romanticize it a little and believe it all to be more than a few drunkards, but as I said before: I’ve always had a knack for city life.

 

 

Author's Note

What do you think of the dialogue? What are your views on it as a descriptive piece? Do you have a vivid image of what I'm talking about?

Reviews

[A. Amos]

I really like the flow and your story telling in this chill-out tale... simply spectacular!