Dragon Express

The blood orange light shone dully from the perpetually rainy corner. The corner was isolated, everything around it had gone dark. It was foggy and damp outside and from inside you could see a faint glow of life. On the outside of the door was a crude Chinese character painted in oxblood and wen opened the bell tinkled queerly. The front is bare; a dirty tiled floor and a lone metallic counter, a cardboard facade. Standing rigid behind the counter are two girls, standing so close together they seem to be stuck like that. They're both wearing a deep violet dress and matching pairs of black cat loafers. They're hair is done up cleanly in buns.They don't say a word but beckon simultaneously and pull back the curtain. The curtain, as it were, was a rather off tangerine, turquoise, and fuchsia mix of colors- rather more middle eastern than far. The fluorescent yellow light flickers clinically as a cough is heard from behind the curtain- in the world behind the curtain. 

The air is constricting, a grey haze floats about- cloaking some of the key features of the room. The lighting is foreboding; caged flood lights hang in a row in the middle of the room, barely illuminating the figures sat at tables clinging to the walls. The only sound is unrecognizable music playing from an indistinguishable source and that of a baby crying rather hollowly and far away. The room is a single shade of grey all around with random oxblood painted smears and torn pieces of red fabric. It's cold- yet somehow ablaze. The air is tense and heated; suffocating really, as if a fire is underway. It's like the air is filled with spores and sparks; like one good lighted match or heated argument and the whole room goes up in flames. 

The only life distinguishable is the men, women, and few chickens scuttling about. The men are unwelcoming. They're sat at some tables, sitting on crates stained with Chinese characters. There's cards between their pudgy fingers and change is thrown about. Their faces are contorted in profound grimaces and sneers. Just barely are small marks and scars able to be seen. Some are so mysterious as to have dotted shapes among their cheekbones. Most are bald; some though have enough eyebrow to make up for it. Broad and knitted together, they're the only other form of expression besides bloodthirsty. Maybe rightfully so, for the food scattered about is days old, flies already starting to swarm about it. It's as if this peculiar group of men have been stationary- museum dummies put in place to make an example.

The women wear neutral expressions and bold garments. Their faces are painted up to show bold enthusiasm but behind the facade is a dead expression complete with cold distrusting eyes. They slink to and from, pouring water for the men and every so often pausing to glare up at nothing in particular. 

It's not a huge room but the walk to the back seems endless. The air is denser in the back. Somehow blacker and more scalding. The door is a cold steel and it feels good to pull at the handle- a relaxing cold anomaly in a room full of heated ashes. The door opens in a woosh and behind it lies nothing more than a wall of bricks.

Suddenly, everyone in the room stands up.