Day 15 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge! Here is today’s drabble…

Small Boats

Halfway down the second bottle, there was a ferocious bang outside. Yet another one. I tried to ignore it, but ten minutes later I was out wading through the woodland.

It was the usual: scattered metalwork; tiny outbreaks of fire easily snuffed among the damp trees; dead bodies. Two men, in frock coats and straight trousers, their arms tightly round each other.

We can't catch all the operators. They travel back to hang around by the Wapping steps, touting their flimsy zinc-sided machines as safe, and offering desperate couples a chance to skip forwards to a safer time. Profiteering bastards.

It’s a little late this evening, so this is an idea off the emergency ideas list.

The Victorians invented capitalism. They’d be doing this if they could.