Balcony Blues
Why is the sky violet?
That was what Luther was wondering about when he fished a match out of his pocket and lit his cigarette with it.
He scanned the vibrating violet sky, with the millions of motionless stars on it and the thousands of man-made light sources darting between them. Satellites, ships, space elevators, and stations that shone in green, red, and many other garish colours in the distance.
A battered tape recorder played beside him. The cassette spun slowly inside it, and at a low volume came a mix of leisurely guitar strumming, melancholic mumbling, and harmonica.
He rested his worn boots on the transparent plexiglass railing of the balcony, above the endless abyss that separated the massive skyscrapers of the neon-drenched city from one another. On every tower, huge flashing signs, holograms, screens, and storm beacons flickering on their rooftops gleamed.
The suffocating flood of light reflected off Luther’s sunglasses. Seen from afar, this could have made his lenses look like digital screens. But they were not. Just a simple pair of sunglasses on a young face that looked almost otherworldly from the neon.
A stray gust of wind caught the boy’s messy, bleached blond hair. A chill ran up his spine, whereupon he sank his cold hand into the pocket of his baggy, haphazardly patched suede jacket.
He took a long drag on his cigarette, then slowly blew out the tobacco smoke.
Through the cloud of smoke, something suddenly caught his eye.
A crimson colour.
From one of the balconies of the opposite building, the wind picked up a red scarf. It sent it flying among the cobwebs of railway bridges and electrical cables between the buildings, then ever so slowly, like an autumn leaf, dropped it into the abyss.
Luther watched the dancing scarf without a word until it disappeared into the darkness.
He stared after it for a long time.
Just then, right next to him, the door of the neighbouring balcony, barely a meter away, slid open.
From behind the sliding door, a young woman stepped out. A snow-white dress clung to her graceful, slender figure. As she stepped out, she pulled the wool shawl draped over her shoulders tighter. Her smooth, brilliantly black hair falling to her shoulders was gently floated by the wind.
The two balconies were the exact opposite of each other. While Luther’s functioned as a small storage room, full of parts and metal junk, the girl’s resembled a small garden, with herbs and bonsai trees kept under glass domes.
The girl sat down cross-legged in a bamboo armchair and she too lit a cigarette.
After slowly blowing out the smoke, she glanced at Luther with her narrow, almond-shaped eyes.
“Since when do you listen to music, Lu?”
Luther glanced back at her.
“I couldn’t sleep. And I’ve had this thing for a long time.”
“Well and... what kind of music is this?”
Luther shrugged his shoulders.
“That I don’t know. The cassette is stuck. Only this plays on it.”
The girl looked into the distance toward the reddish sun slowly appearing at the bottom of the sky.
“It suits the dawn.”
She rubbed her eyes tiredly.
“It looks like you’re running late.”
“I know.” Answered the boy. “I wanted to wait until you got home.”
The girl took another drag from her cigarette.
“That is kind of you.” She said, then looked higher up from the rising sun, at the fading moon that still sat faintly in the violet sky despite the daybreak.
“How many years have we been neighbours now?” She turned toward the boy.
Luther closed his eyes and reflected on it.
“Eight, if I’m not mistaken. Why?”
The girl slowly traced two circles with her glowing cigarette, as if writing them into the sky.
“For eight years now we’ve been like the sun and the moon. We only meet at sunrise and sunset. You work during the day, and I work at night. How did we even become friends? I don’t even know anymore. So much time and yet... so few words.”
Luther shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, Mei. I think we used the right words.”
Mei smiled.
“How are the girls?” Asked the boy.
Mei glanced upward.
“Thankfully well. They’re sleeping at my mother’s, as always. I still have to make some breakfast for them. Then I’ll go and pick them up.”
“What’s on the menu today? Vitamin cube or mineral soup?” Asked Luther teasingly.
“That’s food too...” Answered the girl. “Times are hard nowadays.”
The boy hummed and raised his cigarette to his mouth.
“Not food, just nutrients.”
He pointed up at the sky, somewhere among the stars, while resting his elbow on the railing.
“I wonder what the golden citizens are eating right now up there, in the Citadel. There, where the water isn’t undrinkable, the food inedible, the air polluted, and... the sky violet.”
“The Citadel, however, will never be real. Just a space station.” Mei interjected.
“But they have everything. Everything they take away from here and...”
Luther’s hand suddenly twitched wildly and the cigarette fell out of his hand. Unbothered, he watched the flying, glowing cigarette stick, which was quickly snatched up by the city wind.
Then as if nothing had happened, with his other hand he took out a new one from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth.
The almond-eyed girl cast a long, worried glance at him.
“How are you feeling? Do the night tremors still torment you?”
The boy smiled. As he spoke, the unlit cigarette danced in his mouth.
“Do you know what I really love about them? You can count on them. They always come, they are always there. They never let you down. You can’t say that about everything in life.”
The girl leaned forward.
“I could get you a better job, Lu. At the audit office, in one of the departments I know someone who would put you on the hiring list out of turn. You could get some of the red pills. Just like me and the girls.”
The boy lit the cigarette, took a drag, and flicked the ash off the end.
“Eh. An office would kill me sooner than this. Don’t worry about it. That’s how PR works.”
The girl glanced at him questioningly.
“PR?”
“That’s right. At the company, that’s just what we call it. Pill or... rotation. You work, you die, then someone else comes to take your place. My kind could only afford the white pill.”
The features of Mei’s face hardened.
“That cursed thing. How many have gone already because of those false illusions that drug gives you...”
The boy nodded.
“They say you imagine yourself to be an angel if you take it. And that you can soar... toward happiness.”
Luther looked down into the deep.
“And then you soar.”
For a long moment they sat in silence next to each other.
The boy reached to the side and switched off the tape recorder, then turned completely toward the girl.
“I don’t need anything else, just blue sky and clean water. Like in the books. And now is the time for that, Mei.”
He took off his sunglasses and stared at the girl. His sky-blue eyes seemed as if they were reflecting his words.
“I got the call-up from the Ministry. I leave today for the army assembly point.”
The breath caught in the girl’s chest. And her heart gave a wild thump.
