The Arm

The smell of the Arm's salt wafts stubbornly on the breeze, through the medley of scents emanating from the food stalls lining the waterfront. Of all those aromas, she craves the salt the most; it's a tantalizing reminder of Alexandria's Mediterranean. Even despite the Arm's stately calm being sharply at odds with the raging waves she knew were crashing relentlessly on the coast of Egypt's northern city.

She envisioned the shape of the water beneath that calm surface, and wondered if it possibly belied a swift current. A passion for human companionship, a desire to talk perhaps. A desire to entrap, ensnare and seduce. A cold, casual slap after you've trusted the warmth of that salt on the air.

The horizon held a weak morning light. In her Book, sleep was described as a "small death". Despite that darker name, that was an embrace she knew was kind, and her dreams rather more lit than most mornings. Dreams can be beautiful, when they're your own. In sleep, her Arm was warm.