Charles Dickens

A child walks through narrow streets, his pockets empty, his eyes wide, watching the world press forward, its weight resting on small shoulders. The factory hums, the ink dries, stories stir where hardship lingers, and in the quiet corners of the city, voices shape themselves into prose. Pages fill with the lost and forgotten, with candlelit hopes and winter's hunger, with laughter that hides behind sorrow, and justice that comes too late. Crowds gather by dim-lit shop windows, reading the fate of a crippled boy, of a debtor's son, a convict's path, of ghosts whispering through the night. The quill moves, tireless, urgent, until time grows thin, breath shorter, yet the streets still speak his name, and the poor still walk his pages.