Silhouettes

Neon on my naked skin

Passing silhouettes

Of strange illuminated mannequins

                                     ------------------- From "Big in Japan" by Alphaville (Ane Brun's cover)

(Inspired by a Steampunk sim... a first steampunk vignette from me)

The periodic whoosh of the massive propellers levitating my airborne home to the top of the cliff had the comfort of a steady heartbeat. The pressure guages in the boiler room that fed the steam to the engine that powered the propellers were doing their job well and I could rest easy for the night. A few feet from where I sat in my chair behind the desk, a wall of checkered windows looked down on the channel that separated the jagged cliff of the island city-state from mainland. Tonight, a dense white fog blanketed the water reducing visibility so severely that no one, not even you, would be able to slip into the city for an attack.

I could sense you, perhaps through  a whiff of your body's scent, before I heard the soft rustle of silk. When I looked up from the maritime reports I had been studying, you were sitting on the chair across the desk from me. Your right leg pulled up on the seat, your left leg swinging free, your ornate purple-hued oriental silk robe open as you leaned back with a glass of red wine in your hand. I traced your curves with my eyes, smiling, wanting to tell you that one day you will be mine. 

The only reason I did not reach for the revolver in the top left drawer of my desk is because I knew that you were not really there, that my mind was playing tricks with me.