Faded black ink visible between her collarbones, slightly beneath the pit of her neck; an Isis eye of tapered Egyptian mysticism. Her glasses were white and wide-rimmed, inset glass sleek and clear with eyes blue and sharp, in sync with the faded shades of her uniform. She'd seen life, all sides of it, despite her reluctance to share this information.
The isis eye seemed to shift as she smiled a coy smile. 'Security is here most nights.' she said. 'Without it, we'd be threatened on a nightly basis.'
'Welcome to the graveyard.' he replied. The granite counter-top between them was speckled with decades of careless indentation; millions of tiny scratch-marks extending millimeters beneath the surface like bad memories. Dead fluorescent lamps shed a flood of light at an angle oblique enough to draw upon the pockmarked surface a miniaturized web of shadows, emphasizing the abuse.
'Graveyards are all I know.' she said. 'Just another sideshow in Neon Forest. And it doesn't stop, night after night.'
'The only way to deal with them is to respond with violence,' he said, sparking a moment of mutual clarity. 'They'll understand that. And tasers. Lots of tasers.'
'That's what I'm used to.' her smile returned. The soft crease formed on her upper lip when she smiled was a welcome distraction.
An air of transience marked the transaction, carefree and simple, as if a glorious ringmaster had plucked the rush of a roller-coaster drop and plunged it through the prick of a hypodermic needle, slicing through skin. Her other thoughts held themselves within locations locked and wrapped in tightening tendrils, patterns repeated and re-uploaded on a consistent basis like the flow of a railroad track; a game for him.
And the night-rain was comforting in the cityscape. It fell in sheets, wet as can be.
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