WORK PIT FOURThere are things in the mud with us. When I’m not numb from the cold that seeps through the meat of me and turns my bones to ice, I feel them squirm past my hands. Sometimes, I try to grab one, but they always disappear just as my fingers close around them.
Maybe they’re ghosts.
No one believes me, but then again I don’t expect them to. Just like the others, I’m a liar and a thief and a criminal, sentenced to plow through Work Pit Four’s mud with my fingers, my sentence for stealing a coat and hat, the garments stained with soot from London’s new factories.
“Collins!” a voice shouts with the volume of a pistol shot. “Fuckin’ work, you!”
My beard, too matted and sopping to be scraggly, weighs at my face as I bend forward and explore the mud with my fingers once more.
Somet
