Manchester

Manchester - somewhere between Salford Crescent and Manchester Piccadilly is a house that has been there forever. Long enough to watch the city unfold for miles around it. From canal-ways to motorways. It's been watching from its privileged vantage point. Not so tall as to be noticed much by anyone on the street, yet not so small as to be smothered entirely by the ever-growing city. It gets just enough light. The train-drivers know it. They cannot remember a time when they did not know of it. They eye the house suspiciously as they near, changing gears, slowing down even to a crawl half-dreading the dark mass with its puckered brickwork. They imagine how the constant vibrations of the trains might be forcing away the dry cement, making it crumble and move and that one day it could all come tumbling down on top of them, taking the raised track with it. But it hasn't yet and they forget about it as soon as they pass, for though it is a-part-of, it stands apart. Like how trees sometimes have gates erected too near and since the stubborn gate metal won’t budge and the tree just can’t help growing the tree ends up absorbing the gate. So the house seems absorb, to crouch quite underneath the railway but lean in dramatically as it nears the tracks and then rises above it so that the two structures almost meet or even do meet. So passing-by the train windows darken in the shade of the house and though they are not conscious of the reasons why the passengers stand and ready themselves to leave. What they do know is that something old and strange has passed and that they are now more or less in Manchester.