Up bright & early, to greet May Day in the way traditional during an apocalyptic time of pandemic: by retracing the footsteps of the Narrator in H. G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds through an empty London to the Martian camp.
To Primrose Hill!
To Primrose Hill!
"I resolved... to go on into London. There, it seemed to me, I had the best chance of learning what the Martians and my fellowmen were doing. I was still upon the roof when the late moon rose." #WarOfTheWorlds
Current mood: ‘Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla.”
“There was black dust along the roadway from the bridge onwards, and it grew thicker in Fulham. The streets were horribly quiet.” #WarOfTheWorlds 
“Some way towards Walham Green the streets became clear of powder, and I passed a white terrace of houses on fire; the noise of the burning was an absolute relief.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“Going on towards Brompton, the streets were quiet again.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“Where there was no black powder, it was curiously like a Sunday in the City, with the closed shops, the houses locked up and the blinds drawn, the desertion, and the stillness.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“In South Kensington the streets were clear of dead & of black powder. It was nr Sth Kensington that I first heard the howling. It crept almost imperceptibly upon my senses. It was a sobbing alternation of 2 notes, “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla” keeping on perpetually.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“I had half a mind to break into the Natural History Museum and find my way up to the summits of the towers, in order to see across the park. But I decided to keep to the ground, where quick hiding was possible, and so went on up the Exhibition Road.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“At the top, near the park gate, I came upon a strange sight—a bus overturned, and the skeleton of a horse picked clean.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“I went on to the bridge over the Serpentine. The voice grew stronger and stronger, though I could see nothing above the housetops on the north side of the park, save a haze of smoke to the northwest.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“I found I was intensely weary, footsore, and now again hungry and thirsty.”
“I came into Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, and here again were black powder and several bodies, and an evil, ominous smell from the gratings of the cellars of some of the houses.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“With infinite trouble I managed to break into a public-house and get food and drink. I was weary after eating, and went into the parlour behind the bar, and slept on a black horsehair sofa I found there.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“I wandered on through the silent residential squares to Baker Street—Portman Square is the only one I can name...”
“As I emerged from the top of Baker Street, I saw far away over the trees in the clearness of the sunset the hood of the Martian giant from which the howling proceeded.” #WarOfTheWorlds
(Has no one thought to write a story about what Sherlock Holmes did during the Martian invasion?)
“I turned back away from the park and struck into Park Road, intending to skirt the park, went along under the shelter of the terraces, and got a view of this stationary, howling Martian from the direction of St. John's Wood.” #WarOfTheWorlds
(How did WG Grace fare during the Martian invasion, I wonder? Better than he did during the Zeppelin attack, I hope...)
“Far away, through a gap in the trees, I saw a second Martian, as motionless as the first, standing in the park towards the Zoological Gardens, and silent.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“A little beyond the ruins about the smashed handling-machine I came upon the red weed again, and found the Regent's Canal, a spongy mass of dark-red vegetation.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“Great mounds had been heaped about the crest of the hill, making a huge redoubt of it—it was the final & largest place the Martians had made—& from behind these heaps there rose a thin smoke against the sky. Against the sky-line an eager dog ran & disappeared.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“Some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians—dead!—slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared...”
Phew! #WarOfTheWorlds
Phew! #WarOfTheWorlds
“All about the pit, & saved as by a miracle from everlasting destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities. Those who have only seen London veiled in her sombre robes of smoke can scarcely imagine the naked clearness & beauty of the silent wilderness of houses.”
“The dome of St. Paul's was dark against the sunrise, and injured, I saw for the first time, by a huge gaping cavity on its western side.” #WarOfTheWorlds
“When I realized the shadow had been rolled back, & that men might still live in the streets, & this dear vast dead city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave of emotion that was near akin to tears. The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin.”
“By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.” #WarOfTheWorlds
And so for the long walk back home to Brixton. Stay safe everyone, & know that we shall one day crowd upon the summit of Primrose Hill!
