2 Quotes by Mark Shearman

A brisk wind spiralled down Camden street kicking up debris, causing Jerry Morgan to retreat further into the doorway of Larkins the Bookmaker. He covered the flame from his lighter with his chapped hand. Inhaled and coughed, a deep rasp, the sort of chesty wheeze that came from forty years of smoking his first drag at thirteen years old.

A fifty-year-old Santa Claus rang a loud tinsel-covered bell, slurring, "Merry Christmas!" hitching his stomach up, as hordes of cold-footed and guiltless pedestrians changed direction like a hunted sardine ball. Most of them, while wrapping scarves around their cold and annoyed faces, chose to brave the buskers and Big Issue sellers on the other side of the road, thus creating a bottleneck adjacent to the roadworks.