The Great Flood Of Sheffield.

You will have seen on the news, depending on where you are, that a month’s worth of rain got bored of waiting and decided to jump the queue. I haven’t seen the news, because there’s no power. The shops are shut, the roads are covered in dirt, walls have collapsed, there’s a tree been pulled down river and it’s stuck at Hillsborough Corner, B&Q have been flooded out so pre-packed flooring can be seen floating down the river, and by the time I get the internet back this post will be out of date. There have been explosions, drownings and helicopter rescues, and in the midst of this, Samuel turned up to let me know the latest on the Crosspool candlelighters.

He left his soggy dog in the garden until Norman took pity on it, giving it some hard earned affection and a towel dry. The animal stinks, and not just because of the wet – I don’t know what Samuel feeds it, but it smells of bad pies.

Samuel was very business like – he has been since his return. Up until now the activities of the once-magicians have been mundane enough to rival Big Brother’s live feed: grocery shopping, furniture deliveries, decorators, cleaning. Usually when Samuel calls by I can tune out of what he’s telling me, since he’ll talk at length about implications and associations, when the only thing that maters is whether they mean me harm.
“Of the last three cults that I’ve met, one of them held a knife to my throat, one of them had me cut open my arm while I got high, and the other roped me into their OAP custody battle, only to try and implicate me in a kidnapping. I still haven’t figured out what was going on there.”
“I don’t think they’re here because of you.” Said Samuel of the candlelighters, quietly and not convincingly.
“Nor was anyone else.”

Today he reported that they’d all left the house together, in a great rush and an excitable state. They kept dashing back for things forgotten, before finally driving off. To where? Samuel can’t say – he was stood on their road with his dog and couldn’t follow them.
“They turned right, away from the city centre.” He said, confidently. “Don’t you think that’s odd? Given the rain, why would they be driving out into the peaks?”
“Who says they’ve gone to the peaks? They could’ve gone to Manchester for all you saw. Can’t blame them if they did.” The theory holds more water than I’d intended, since they haven’t come back yet.