– Galileo Galilei Hearts have feelings and minds have memories long after they allegedly die. At least that’s what I’ve discovered. If Silas knows it too, then he’s not letting on. He just walks beside me down the foggy pavement, cane at his side. The golden spiral around the polished oak whirrs with the click of cogs and gears, sending out subtle vibrations as it assesses the path before us. The signals return to his palm in calculated waves of volume and size. The cane tells him when to stop, when to go, when to turn and, perhaps most importantly, when to run. A black-skinned man in 1894 knows a lot about running. These murky cobbles, lit by the dim yellow glow of fetid gas lamps, they’re leading us to Oxford Street. It’s not a place to which persons of colour usually go. That’s why Silas wants me here: just in case his midnight jaunt goes awry. He only emerges to walk at night, taking air when London is at rest and the fumes of the factories that surround us are reduced, their dark chimneys only letting faint wisps escape, echoes of the production that occurs when the sky is bright.
