Unclogging the Stone Spout

The flat was stagnant, so I hitched a ride inside a canvas messenger bag heading into the City and dropped into the secluded garden ruins of St Dunstan. In the central courtyard, a weathered stone basin was stagnant; water barely trickled from the carved lion spout because a cluster of sodden plane-tree leaves had packed solid inside its mouth. I scaled the damp, ivy-laced limestone wall to reach the rim. Bracing my combat boots against the mossy ledge, I gripped a discarded copper wire nail from the mulch below. With two calculated thrusts into the crevice, the sodden blockage gave way. Clear water burst through in a steady, bubbling stream, rippling across the dark surface below. Sector flow operational.