beginning

Through the endless boulevards of the inexhaustible city, where overhanging buildings shadow the sidewalks.
Driving through streets wet with afternoon rain, where little pigeons swoop and miss refuse...
Lumbering in the sight-seeing bus, past the museum and the bright flag and the endless Georgian terrace, or on the bottom streets past gardens, hedges, inconspicous Victorian weeds...
The bus was bedecked and painted with gaudy advertisements and messages, advertising in broad brown-red letters the sight-seeing tour. The top-deck of the bus where M. sat, dreaming lazily, was open to the sky so that mid afternoon breezes swept in as the stodgy bus meandered along, rifling his hair, scattering dropped sweetie wrappers up the aisle.