Ships and Space, Part 1a

Taking a well-considered exhale from his pipe, he ventured out from the full plate in front of him over to the window, at the cosmic archipelago of shifting stars winking out, drifting, and appearing again as if brushed over to their new destinations by imperceptible celestial waves; neon hues bleeding through the endless quiet, it was a dreamlike reverie in which stars landed on a mechanically fertile arbor with burgeoning grapes of civilization bustling on a prime vine.

He had ordered the taxi, as would any generous well-to-do someone who wanted to make a good impression relatively efficiently. Of course not someone, like him, who wears a cheap trench coat in a high-end restaurant. But he is smiling at me nicely and standing up. And he looks like his profile.

He took her coat, and she wracked her brain for things to talk about, tapping her fingers on the glossy marble tabletop.

He reserved a moment to take her in fully; she had extremely thin horizontal lines at intervals across her body that gradually changed into different colours, and that sent a radiance across areas that were touched. Her fingers sparkled and flashed as they danced off the surface. He took another breath on his pipe.

Feeling anxious?

She quickly looked up at him, and he smiled back, gently.

This pipe releases pleasure chemicals in the brain, in manageable doses. Hopefully I can do the rest myself, but this should put us off to a good start.

He handed it to her. It was a relatively large mechanical stylus with no obvious aperture.

That side.

She held it in her mouth and took a deep inhale.

He was quite cute.