We take the tube to Embankment to visit the London Eye. After a full whirl on the Eye I conclude that I like the view from the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral better. There is something more rewarding about climbing all those spiral stairs.
Some girls from The Chorus and I get vanilla and chocolate swirled ice cream cones. We join a crowd encircling a street performer who is ending his routine by eating an apple high up on a tall unicycle while juggling swords. He keeps his balance by pedaling back and forth around the chainwheel.
The Chorus cries, “How will he get down from there?”
He bites into the apple and keeps it in his mouth, then collects the falling swords into his hands. He stops his feet which pivots the wheel below and the unicycle’s tall frame stills, then becomes the swinging radius of a descending arc, listing him forward and grounding him. He takes a long bow and asks a young boy to take his hat and collect money from the crowd. I give the boy a pound. Few follow me. The crowd thins, the circle breaks.
I feel a girl circle around me to my left. She has the most beautiful features of any girl I have seen on this trip. I fall into her round, blue eyes, spinning into them like water down an open drain. She directs one of her friends to give the boy a pound. It is then that I notice her urine percolating into a plastic cubical container on her wheelchair armrest.
I climb the spiral stairs of St. Paul.
She needs the Eye to see London.
“I can’t find a girl who can keep up with me.”
I melt in pity for the street performer.
