Film Noir

The BFI on the South Bank was the location for a screening of fashion and film from the forties onwards. A plush, claret velvet private screening room showing cut off patterns of clothing through time in black and white and vivid colour. When the show was over, I was disgorged onto a streetlit walkway.

A man in a black suit leant against the glowing side of the film institute. His profile lit by a sulphur street lamp, one foot pressing on the wall, head thrown back, he exhaled cigarette smoke. New laws make any smoking an illicit act, but this was especially atmospheric - an unwitting homage, or perhaps something more aware.

At Waterloo station the clock face bore the words 'out of order', black on white, inside the ring of Roman numerals where the hands should have been.

Finally, a woman walked onto the bus on Battersea Park road wearing a red feathered fedora and black double-breasted trench, cinched in. Her hair was dark and neat, her lips were scarlet and her face pale, uncertain, haunted.

Is this all simple coincidence or a more complex plot?

(Image courtesy of Spoony Mushroom on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/transcendent/)