Photographer Unknown, (Getting Wet by the Rain)

“The road was wet with rain, black and shiny like oilskin. The reflection of the street lamps wallowed like yellow jelly-fish. A bus was approaching- a bus to Piccadilly, a bus to the never-never land- a bus to death or glory.

I found neither. I found something which haunts me still.

The great bus swayed as it sped. The black street gleamed. Through the window a hundred faces fluttered by as though the leaves of a dark book were being flicked over. And I sat there, with a sixpenny ticket in my hand. What was I doing! Where was I going?”

–Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place”, Weird Shadows from Beyond