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The old man looked out across the Thames towards the Isle of Dogs and the black needle that became lost amongst the purple clouds. The sun was setting and the sky was a multitude of livid hues, as the sunlight filtered through an aerosol of carcinogens. He remembered the old tower, dwarfish by today's standards. It had been blown up by a shrill group of Chinese immigrants in '21. The broadsheets had called it a cry for help, the only way that the increasingly ignored migrants could make themselves heard by a society that had abused and dismissed them.
Of course, the tabloids had been less sympathetic: "Asia War", "Yellow Peril" and "The Dragon Arises". Nothing had come of their desperate act, of course, and now One Canada Square rose nearly three kilometres above the waters of the Thames. You could not stand against progress.
He brushed his now snow-white fringe from his eyes. His fine hair had been endearingly boyish in his youth. Now it made him look like a decrepit old dandy. He watched the lights of the northern bank of the river from his luxuriously minimalist Leander Court apartment. He recalled when the Docklands development had been a joke. That was so long ago, in the days before he signed his name in blood on the dotted line. It was funny how things turned out, particularly when they turned out exactly as you had imagined.
The antique compact disc played on in the background, music from his youth:
"We found you hiding, we found you lying
choking on the dirt and sand
your former glories and all the stories
dragged and washed with eager hands..."
He smiled and thought of Weissmann. The Jew's assassins would be here soon: the Yon-Ju-Shichi Ronin on whom he had inexplicably decided to lavish money. "Soon I'll be dead, " thought the old man. Not that it mattered to him. It would be an insignificant development if everything went according to plan. He smiled wryly.
The sun was down now. Evening came. Morning came. Shabbat was over, the Haredim would be going to work.
"Oh, Efraim. Wait until you find out what I'm going to do to you before this is all over."
Geoff Hinkley, 29/09/00
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