Old Birmingham is more of an idea than a place. It creeps through the cracks in the pavement of the Jewellery Quarter, drips down the graffiti of Digbeth, oozes through the traffic on the Stratford Road, and sits stagnant around the chocolate factory at Bourneville.

It sometimes tastes of fresh rain, and sometimes it tastes like fresh green leaves, but mostly it tastes like pollution. The smells of Birmingham are so strong, after all, that they burn your tongue and the back of your throat on the way down.

Old Birmingham is a dream that was sold to a people hundreds of years ago and now it doesn't know what to do with itself, caught between pandering to a crowd of young men in fitted suits who work in finance, and the people whose sweat, blood, and tears built this city on the backs of cars and canals and chocolate.

I am Old Birmingham.

"That'll be £4.99. Are you paying by card?"

The customer is already holding their card against the machine, not looking at me at all. It is the third customer I've served in a row that has looked at the boards behind me, the cash register, the keypad, but not made eye contact with me at all. Old Birmingham is, after all, invisible to New Birmingham.

"Thank you very much. If you just wait over there, I'll call your order number when it's ready."

The customer moves to one side and I dodge around co-workers who usually quit before I ever get the chance to learn their names and collect fries, and coke, and burgers. My hands are greasy as I hand over the bag to the customer, who looks inside to check their order is correct and walks away without even a thank you.

The clock reads 7:58pm, and that is close enough to clocking out time that I'm prepared to start to make my way to the break room to clock out.

"Soren! Are you scheduled in tomorrow? Do you want to pick up another shift?" My manager yells across the grills and deep fryers as I push open the door to non-greasy freedom.

I am not scheduled.

I can't afford to not work though.

"Yeah, sure. Sign me up to cover," I say, then I pass through the door, leave the kitchen and embed myself in the silence that follows.

Tonight is important. Tonight is the night that everything I've been preparing for manifests itself. Tonight is the night that I take a stand for myself, do what is right, and put the energy out into the world that I want to see returned to me.

I head to the break room, wait thirty seconds until it's officially my time to clock out, and then go and get changed into my clothes. I shove my uniform into a plastic bag so the scent of vegetable oil and fried meat won't transfer to my backpack, and pull on grey joggers and a hoodie.

I put my headphones in and let the music take me away.

It doesn't matter if someone jostles me on the street, or if I watch my bus home pull away and leave me stranded for another 27 minutes until the next one, or if there are teenagers on the back of the bus eating edibles and playing videos for each other so loud it almost shakes the glass.

Tonight, Old Birmingham will get what it deserves.

The bus winds through the city. The further out we get the more the landscape changes. Around the city centre at first, the buildings are close together. Terraces built on top of each other. I grew up here, in one of these, with neighbours on each side who both spoke a different language and the air filled with music and spices.

Then we hit the leafy part. A family of four is walking a dog. Cars no longer line the roads, but are instead on driveways behind black iron gates. There are no businesses on the corners of streets, just large, detached houses for large, detached people.

Finally, we reach my area. Green, for sure, but that's only because they decided to build up rather than out. The tower blocks loom in the distance, once the pinnacle of Old Birmingham and a beacon of community and togetherness. They stand amidst park land, against the grey sky, tall towers of concrete and engineering and glass.

I get of the bus, thank the driver as the doors shut behind me, head to my block and pray that the elevator is walking and I don't have to climb to the 14th floor by foot again tonight. I'm lucky, and perhaps that's a sign of how well things are going to go tonight.

In the luminescent light of the lift, my skin looks a bit sallow and my black hair is flat thanks to my uniform cap. Too many days eating bad food. I should drink more water.

Well, there'll be time for that.

The elevator dings. I get out. I walk down the hallway that smells like old people and cats until I get to my apartment.

I take a deep breath.

If I did everything right, The Hierophant will be waiting for me. With the magic passed down from Old Birmingham, all the rites and rituals, all the whispered conversations, I'll have managed to summon him and he'll be able to change my life and make it better. He'll be able to guide me towards a better place.

I open the door.

The scent of incense washes into the hallway, but also a sight that makes every hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I didn't manage to summon The Hierophant.

Instead, I stare into the unblinking eyes of The Other.