GOTHIC

It’s cocktail hour. Old money dressed for drinks. A young man sits in an orange tufted high back chair edged in mahogany. He stabs out his cigarette and lights another. He’ll listen to the small talk for one more smoke before cutting out to the backwater where he can drink with the locals. A woman sits close by in a matching chair. She’s all legs and a bottle of scotch. A cocktail napkin is pressed beneath her glass to catch the drip of family secrets.

The room is sickroom green, the color used in psych wards to calm the patients. The young man is patient. He has the patience of an heir. He takes a final drag. He kisses the woman’s cheek on his way out and dims the lamp by the window. The red shade glows like a slice of red velvet cake.