Skimming the mire

Groping is done best without light. Down here we do not see, we feel. We do not smell, but we hear. We never taste.
Sploshing in the middle levels I find bones and guts. Any animal will do: horse, rabbit, chicken or dog. I must, many times, have handled the remains of the elderly and of small children. How would I know when all I feel for is the strength of close vitality, or the brittle of dried seaweed?
I disengage from probabilities and just stuff my sack, it doesn’t matter any more. There’s no policeman looking for such as these.
I sloop through soupy wastes in search of morsels to pick. I wade and stink. The priest does not open his confessional to me, but his bowels? Now there’s a sight to see. From me, he cannot hide even that which he puts inside of him; for I am waiting when the waters discharge from his chambers.
But I am not the first to spy. The holy spring gushes forth onto the strongest vermin, whence they collect the greedy flotsam. Coins, perhaps? Children’s trinkets, once held close to the heart; a lady’s jewels, once clasped close to her breast; a pen; a wig; a soiled handkerchief. All are siphoned and spooned into ragged pockets for later sale and barter. Thus the stronger stay strong, and afford bread and gin for their fetid mouths. They sleep somewhere above ground.
Then we come. The gropers without flame or flesh, even. Sometimes thrashing about for the slimy carcasses. My sack is full of the bishop’s chops and I will soon find my walkway up onto the Operngasse and sell my bones at the soot-belching factory.
I too will have enough for gin.
After come the skimmers. They steal the very life-blood of the city, the fat and grease that settles on the surface of the grimacing, stagnant sewer. Even this can be sold.
Once I found a skimmer, choked with rats, his one eye panicked but glazed. I waited as long as I could before I helped the bones free.