Linkless

Enraptured I had explored the hall of mirrors, each slab of reflected light a further temptation on the creaking peer. But the room ended: a pall of darkness and the soft heavy barrier of a crimson rope. ‘Wet… Velvet’, my guide licked the words as he passed them to me, a trick of silence, a trick of memory: no one spoke. Alone, ducking the rope I probed the darkness, far to the left, my fingers stretching: fearing, longing for the damp texture. Disappointment… relief…. My guide was gone, the peer empty, the night, drained of its echoes: too silent for comfort. I vaulted and my ankle rang against the cold metal of the turn style; fear and pain shredded my ragged breath into a curse. Limping across the carriageway I dived for the concealing shadows of a tower, a heaped concrete box of tenanted prisoners. Expecting comfort, or perhaps some less wholesome aspect of company, within; my hobbling compassed the grounds. The thumps and buzzing of other peoples lives filtered through the glass and concrete. Strange... each window was a blank and grimy mirror. Not curtains, or blinds, not even lack of illumination, something, some absence kept me from seeing within. An eerie puzzlement drew me round each corner until I stopped, again by the roadside. Indulging my unhappy speculations I had noticed no entrance. Focusing on the prosaic task I let my left hand brush the concrete. Another circuit, not a door, but the flayed textures of an external stair. Six stories above a wan light was being squeezed through glass, dissipating into the hungry air. Mike! Your links are as broken as my narrative! Wet Velvet may elude me for reasons of my own competence (or timidity), but I can only join the Sleepless at the seventh story, sorry, chapter, all links to them before, and after, are severed. My pleasure, yes, let us settle with pleasure. My pleasure at listening to your Hall of Mirrors, and short stories collection has been immense. So I beg: restore the broken links, let thy people hear thy word!