In his dreams he saw a cemetery on a hill in some land he could not recognise and the tombstones were a pale whitish-red and the names were etched a deep black but he could not read them. As the sun set, blood orange bars of light flooded the sky. Then he saw the fire and the wind chopped up and the flames licked and spat as darkness fell and horses ran wildly through the flames.
He woke with one eye. The other was still sleeping. The room was cold and black and he pulled his black jacket over him in a fashion. After a few attempts at warmth and returning to slumber he gave up, fumbled for the light controls and filled the room a sickly bright yellow that stung and poked at the back of his eyes like an unwelcome needle. In the bathroom he washed away a metallic and concrete aftertaste with a waterfall of synthetic water.
All along the station the ships went, their lights shining and blipping eerily to the backdrop of the vast ceiling of emptiness above them and he sat there and watched maybe a hundred ships come and go. Through the tunnels below him he watched them weave like little dots of insignificance, dulled by the high-reaching towers of steel and structure. He watched them with warpaint and he watched them new. The bots repaired them and the machines crushed them. As if sat atop a great cathedral he watched long into the night, the ships.
The top of the station roof buzzed and clicked and bits rattled as if the entire thing was a living creature. A mechanic walked steadily past him without acknowledgment. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with stale station air and he thought for a very brief moment about the fresh air of home. He looked across at a huge row of black windows, the blacklight above them casting them in a strange but appealing light and a billboard reading DANCE flashed high above. He laughed to himself and thought no not tonight.
He felt like right now at this very moment in time he had reached a crossroads and he had to make the decision. He rose from the seat on the balcony, with a slight pang thudding in his cold dead black heart, turned on his bootheels and dug them with a clink into the black metal flooring. He strode towards the elevator and smacked a leather glove hard on the button that said HANGAR, and in doing so he smiled to himself.
MB.
