Neon Ghosts

They emerge from the shadows in all shapes, sizes and colours. Mostly Red and Pink, but sometimes Blue, Green, and even Purple.

Neon ghosts.

Nameless fantasies, stealers of hearts and of wallets, sellers of dreams and salacious promise; if only for fifteen minutes at a time.

A spectacle to some, a sinful secret for others.

Enticing, inviting. I avert my gaze and quickly, they realise I’m just here to stare to regard then disregard. Just a tourist a time waster, passing through this labyrinth of desire this monstrosity of beauty.

Each window, a story a legend, part truth part fiction: A runaway here an abused soul over there. A wife, mother, daughter and friend. Weak. Empowered. Vulnerable.

For decadence, for easy money, to endure the low life so they can taste the high, cheap thrills to pay the bills and feed innocent mouths.

Some just like to fuck.

And we the punters, gawping, staring, judging. Hundreds of us marching, slowly down the alleys like zombies.

No difference.

Both are consumed by the sweet scent of the flesh. They are undead and we are, temporarily, dead inside, just running on instinct and carnal desire, until the night comes with all of its seedy secrets and mirrors you cannot smash or scratch away.

It is the late hours when the creeps come out, moving, covertly through the dark. Shadows hiding in the mist that permeates the back alleys and crooked corners.

An hour glass figure, silhouetted in pink, taps the glass, scratches it, enticing her prey to come closer to enter and bare all; flesh, shame, secrets, money?

 I shake my head no, but my trousers betray me. Inside it is dark, except for the purple light in the corner by the bed.  

 “Drop your pants, baby.”

My pants drop, her head follows. I lay back gazing at the ceiling, lost in its blackness until deliverance, in the shape of a warm mouth, releases me, if only for a few moments, of all my worries, woes and frustrations that only the modern world can bestow.

“Times up.”

Ironically, she ushers me out the door as quickly as she beckoned me in. She appears at the window, again, her smile reaching beyond me like I was never even there.