As we were flying over the eastern edge of the Peninsula, I could see what looked like the old Blackwall Point power station, that had closed years ago but which now seemed to have reappeared out of the river. The tall chimney towered over the misty water, and I could just make out a tank full of liquid. There were wires hanging from every part of the building.
As we neared the power station the chimney began to belch out thick smoke. The taxi driver gasped. “That’s not supposed to be working! It’ll interrupt the magic!” It was too late for us to stop and as we flew into the smoke cloud, we plummeted to the muddy wasteland to the side of the power station. Luckily I landed on an old mattress, but the taxi driver sunk into the mud up to his waist.
“Help me out!” he cried, as he sunk another few inches.
“What happened to the magic?” I asked him. He grabbed the edge of the mattress and I tried to pull him, but it was useless; the mud was so thick I was never going to be able to get him out.
“It sometimes happens with time travel,” he said, “Industrial pollution from the past interferes with the magic powers”
I looked at him. “Really. Well that’s straightforward.” But before I could ask him to explain more, we both turned around at the sound of an engine starting. A crane that had been parked at the edge of the power station was coming towards us. The arm of the crane picked up the edge of the mattress and began to lift it out of the mud. The taxi driver held on to the plastic handle on the end and eventually we both stood, covered in mud, next to the power station.
The figure of a man stepped down from the car of the crane and lifted his arm to wave as he walked away. He was wearing a blue and orange boiler suit and a cap. “Wait! Thanks!” I called out, and he turned around to show what seemed from this distance to be a curiously skeletal face, but continued to walk back through the doors of the power station.
“Who was that?” I asked the taxi driver.
“Well… do you believe in ghosts?” he asked me, looking at me sideways.
“No, of course not!” I replied, although why I should be so sure of this while standing in a power station that I knew had been demolished years ago, I don’t know.
“Hmmm.. Interesting..” he said and simply carried on walking. However, shortly after this we stepped on a patch of rubble which gave way beneath our feet, and we fell through into a deep hole.
We pulled ourselves to our feet and I looked at him.
“So once again I’m going to ask, what happened to the magic?”
“I think it’s malfunctioned,” he said sheepishly. “Maybe it’s a virus or something. Anyway it’s ok, but we’ll have to take the long way to the O2 now I’m afraid.”
My eyes were becoming more accustomed to the dark and I could see that we were in a tunnel, something like the Woolwich Foot Tunnel but lit with very dim blue lights, and a faint yellow glimmer of more brightness up ahead. “Come on,” said the taxi driver, and led the way.
So we followed the direction of the yellow light and after about ten minutes reached some steps with a sign pointing “Millennium Dome this way”, which was strange, not only because it closed years ago, but also because it was certainly never open at the same time as the Blackwall Point Power station….
