The next generation
On my way to work in the morning, I often stop in at this little bakery around the corner from my office. It’s tiny and cramped, but it smells fantastic and the coffee’s cheap. Anyhow, this particular morning as I was trying to summon my keys from the depths of my purse while holding an overly full and fiendishly hot cup of coffee and an umbrella, I encountered a sight on the benches outside of this bakery that filled my heart with glee. What was it, you ask?
A scrawny teenager, dressed all in black, reading the first pages of a crisp new copy of Neuromancer and smoking what was undeniably a clove cigarette. It makes me unutterably glad that teenagers still do this. Given that the ones who live in my building all favor oversized sports apparel and Camels, I was beginning to lose hope.
You are entirely too young to be feeling nostalgic for your adolescent years, Miss Emma.
I feel the same way every time I see kids riding skateboards in the street.
Though London could do with a few more of the proper Clove Cigarette Smoking and William Gibson Reading type of teen as well.
I feel the same way when I see a young Orc, dressed in rags, hunting boars in the Valley of Trials. Ah, youth!