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The North Water by Ian McGuire5/7/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() He notices the pink smell of blood from the pork butcher’s, the grimy sway of a woman’s skirts. He peers around and for a moment wonders what it is. His ship leaves at first light, but before then there is something that must be done. He senses a fresh need, small but insistent, arising inside him, a new requirement aching to be met. He breathes in again and runs his tongue along the haphazard ramparts of his teeth. His shoulder rubs against the smoothed red brick, a dog runs past, a cart piled high with rough-cut timber. Above the warehouse roofs, he can see the swaying tops of main- and mizzenmasts, hear the shouts of the stevedores and the thump of mallets from the cooperage nearby. At the end of Charterhouse Lane he turns north onto Wincolmlee, past the De La Pole Tavern, past the sperm candle manufactory and the oil-seed mill. ![]() He sniffs his fingers, then slowly sucks each one in turn, drawing off the last remnants, getting his final money’s worth. He snorts once, rubs his bristled head, and readjusts his crotch. He shuffles out of Clappison’s courtyard onto Sykes Street and snuffs the complex air-turpentine, fishmeal, mustard, black lead, the usual grave, morning-piss stink of just-emptied night jars. ![]()
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