Looking out over Naples.

The man leaned against the cold metal rails of the balcony three stories above the street and lit a cigarette. He drew on it deep and slow with long intervals between each drag and let the smoke out through his nose as slowly as he was able. and all the while he looked out over the street below and enjoyed being solitary, brooding and Meursaultesque.

 

 Young people sauntered and dallied in the street and late buses cruised about under the brusque control of drivers who wanted to get home. In the distance over roof tops the man kept an eye on funnels of boats at the docks. The smell of fried food wrestled with the smell of the docks and the street, each taking its turn at dominating the others, but once his cigarette was smoked the man let the smell of the sea win and his imagination turned to scented islands, albatrosses and dusky maidens. The mournful call of fog horns and sirens raised the tension in his breast as did the wail of trains carrying away the cargo brought from faraway places by ships, and he let the night get swallowed up in dreams that tasted of salt and coconut.