Stemwinder WIP
She woke in the steep, rich light of the late afternoon. It was like gold in this place on this day, flowing from the sky to make shadows the color of old tea and touching everything, no matter how rusted or weathered, with a certain blessing of the eye. Even the air seemed to have been distilled to a breathy wine, filling lungs and belly alike enough to be drunk on the moment.
Paolina stood, stretched, and stepped to the porthole once more. The city beyond was as sprawling and brawling as she remembered it, a thousand times too many people crammed along a slow, muddy river which took much and gave little back, save the very water which sustained life itself. Whistles shrieked, cranes groaned along the docks, and even through the dogged glass of her little window she could smell the conurbation.
Each place had boasted a different scent -- first Strasbourg, then Marseille and Piraeus, now Alexandria -- every city making its own fires, cooking its own meats and spices, steam cars and electrick plants and the mass of bodies and animals combining in a recipe unique to the place. She watched the slow light lacquer all of it, shit and shining palaces alike, into the dying glory of the day.
Paolina stood, stretched, and stepped to the porthole once more. The city beyond was as sprawling and brawling as she remembered it, a thousand times too many people crammed along a slow, muddy river which took much and gave little back, save the very water which sustained life itself. Whistles shrieked, cranes groaned along the docks, and even through the dogged glass of her little window she could smell the conurbation.
Each place had boasted a different scent -- first Strasbourg, then Marseille and Piraeus, now Alexandria -- every city making its own fires, cooking its own meats and spices, steam cars and electrick plants and the mass of bodies and animals combining in a recipe unique to the place. She watched the slow light lacquer all of it, shit and shining palaces alike, into the dying glory of the day.