text: *(2062, eight years after the Last Great War)* &#x200B; The artificial rain pelted against the windshield of the car. Street sign light was warped and played with by the water droplets, casting strange and hypnotic patterns across the faces of passers-by. A tall grey brick apartment building stood, only dwarfed by new corporate skyscrapers in the center of the city. The skyline was jagged and dangerous, radio towers and hovercars populated the world above as the world below harbored the lost souls of the city. But just above the sprinklers poking out of the sides of hovering zeppelins, was dust and intolerable heat. Heath sat in the driver’s seat, a term that had become just a remnant of an age past and somewhat forgotten. The car landed across the street from the “Summerset Apartments”, located in the upper east side Manhatten, though it used to be a nice neighborhood, it was a now well-established hub for prostitution. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, flattening it on the dashboard, the words “Come back for a Kiss” where the word kiss was a pink lipstick mark, he smiled. A letter from a personal escort he had employed many times before, Chelsea Sing, a woman who deserved more credit than she got. He climbed out of the car and swiped his ID-Band across the face of a parking meter. The rain had not halted yet, it still had another twenty-two minutes before the Zeppelin would move to the next section of New York. He pulled out a respiratory mask and secured it to his stubble ridden chin and stalked across the neon-lit street. The building was grey, years of ash of burning countryside had built up on the once-white bricks. Everything below the cloudline was this way. It was a factor of life every one dealt with, everyone wore a respirator or risked lung disease. Every establishment had fans at their entrance to blow away the dust, but that was mostly unnecessary if a zeppelin was pouring rain. The muddy streets were slick beneath his feet, he dodged two cars that drove past, the raindrops reminded of a snare drum. The lobby was skinny and cluttered, an older Chinese woman sat smoking an opium pipe at the reception desk. She wore a deep red kimono riddled with holes revealing her wrinkly and sunspot riddled body beneath. A white cat laid on the counter purring softly, its eyes closed and head resting in its paws. Heath patted the cat and nodded to the woman as she sat half asleep staring out into the street He hummed a sweet tune to which he had forgotten the name. The ambient sound of muffled moaning and gasping was heard throughout the hallways. A sound that one comes accustomed to if you frequent these establishments. Taking the elevator to the hundred and sixteenth floor, it reeked of sex and cigarettes, the smell forced Heath to pull out this own and light up. The smoke caught the sepia tone light above as the soft hum of machinery joined with the subtle jazz music following him up. The elevator doors opened, he was greeted with a beautiful painting of a Rubenesque woman sitting on a silk couch. He felt butterflies rise in his stomach. He made his way down the long hallway, to the last doorway on his left. He stopped, pulled out the paper, and smiled again. He knocked in a short rhythmic pattern reminiscent of “In The Mood”. There was a brief silence 2 before the door slid open revealing a beautifully thin woman, her hair pinned into a bob, below a curvy line of pink lipstick set pursed in mild annoyance, before drifting into a soft delight. “You’re late,” Chelsea said as she turned around and headed back into her apartment, her robe barely covering her body. “There wasn’t a time on the note.” he jested. He hung his wet hat and overcoat on a rack by the door. The apartment was spacious for where it was, as she had a pretty stable income. Directly across the living space, littered with belts, sashes and articles of various lacy underwear, stood a balcony where one could look across the city. He has spent many hours watching life below while operating zeppelins, but it all felt different here, with her. With her. She tiptoed around the room, picking up various instruments and clothing before flinging them into a chest by a music box. Chelsea tapped a few buttons on the box before it whirred to life, a soft white screen lit up, showing a plethora of old-age music. She had, for as long as he had known her, played jazz while relaxing. Her robe drifted off as she glided behind a changing curtain. He caught a glimpse of a tan waist before her shadow was projected onto the translucent screen. The shadow, puppeted by a woman Heath had grown very weak for, began to change into a light pink nightgown. Heath situated himself on a couch, watching her change as the music began to drift to his ears. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander back to his youth, a time before the war. He remembered his old classics professor, who had taught him everything he knew about music and art. His fingers danced on his lap, mimicking piano keys, keeping in time with the music as it sped up and slowed down in all the perfect ways, creating a story without words of a time where life was about living and not working. He opened his eyes as he began to tear up. He saw Chelsea, arm resting on the music box watching him with tender eyes. “Do you miss it?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Heath got up and crossed to her, picked up two glasses, and poured them both whiskey. She accepted and sat down on the couch. She patted it for him to sit with her, but he turned to the balcony instead, looking over the cityscape. The whiskey in his glass swirled as he brought it to his lips. “It used to be so beautiful, before the war.” He watched as the zeppelin had started its route to the next neighborhood. The rain stopped, it would be back within the hour, never on schedule. He tapped his cigarette into a green glass ashtray. “I wish I could’ve seen it from this view before the ash and heat.” She sipped her drink, gazing out the french doors. They remained closed when the rain stopped the ash started. “It was a sight to behold. Did you know that the Empire State Building was once the tallest building in the world?” He looked for it, the once glorious staple of New York was now overshadowed by at least ten other new age architecture. Flying buttresses were strung between buildings like cobwebs in an attic, positioned so they can remain upright. He thought “If I pluck on out the rest would fall like dominos”, the idea was moderately appealing, a new start for an old city. She placed her glass on the music box before switching over to a smoother song. She glided over to him, wrapping her thin arms around him and swaying. She closed her eyes and just listened to him rambling about early twentieth-century architecture and art. Her mind began to play with the idea of a simple life with him in an apartment back in the nineteen-twenties. She began to cry. Heath turned around, knowing what she was thinking, he stopped talking and pulled her away. He knew she wanted a life with him, and he with her. But with her work, she never could, and with his mechanic job, he could never make the money to leave the city, though the countryside was worse, covered in radiation and pockmarked with craters. Everything west until California is in ruin, and everything in the city is dingy and dark. Her tears ran down her face, smearing her mascara. Heath brought her in, embracing her. Forcing from his mind the thought that he’d have to leave soon, or risk her boss finding out about them. She remembered her life before she was an escort, she was a young woman with no care in the world, only seeing the future before all that was cast away by foreign wars brought to domestic soil, forcing her to seek employment anywhere she could. She came to an old Chinese woman who owned a small escort business, signing away her life, cutting her off from any prospect of love or new life. But if she had never done this she would have not met Heath. They swayed in sync with the music, as the rain started once again. The patter of droplets on the glass played with the saxophone and piano. He heard Chelsea quietly whimper, he hugged her tighter, as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her tears flowed down his sleeve, staining it with a sadness you could never wash out. She looked up at him as if he had called her name, she reached with her fingers, found his chin, and brought his mouth towards hers. The stubble scratched her cheeks but she didn’t mind. She pulled back after a long while and looked into his eyes. She could see his feelings for her in those dark blue eyes, she saw a longing for a life with her. She wanted it so bad. But she could never do it. Her contract took away her right to leave. A hovercar passed by the window, its lights illuminating the room, casting shadows across them both. In it, a person with their own problems needs and wants. “Everyone,” she thought, “has a life don’t they.”. Seeing the car just pass by, without a care in the world made her yearn to do the same, to leave this all. She had thought of this before, and perhaps it was true, but none of that mattered if he wasn’t with her. She brought her head back to his shoulder. She began to sway again with him, knowing he had to leave soon. She closed her eyes, and so did he. The music played with their hearts, thumping in time with one another. Life could be better with her. Life could be better with him. Life could be better.