Room One at The Montauk: it was as legendary for its silences as it was for its pristine floor to ceiling windows looking north and west across the dirtnap of train tracks, the yellow mounds of sulphur, the homes of the doomed clinging to the mountainside, their own windows winking like bait. The mountain peaks were still white in the early spring the frost line depicting a cold slice of natural logic. The sky was the only thing that anybody talked about. It was the only thing that they could all agree on. And agree they did. About the blue that was just a shade deeper by mid afternoon than a robin’s egg. And the rich lavender of twilight darkening like a fresh bruise. They claimed to admire the stars though they could never remember the name of that one constellation. I served cocktails, smiled, and listened. Made some pretty good money off those people. It was almost like they were dancing with the mountains. A mechanical routine. Well dressed automata showered by luxury, empty and painful as a paper cut. Image via @sadmagazine / Christian Nicolay.