‘The code parlours, the tattoo parlours – all run by one-eyed poets sixty years old, loaded on Carmondy Rose bourbon – the storefront tailor operations and chop joints, their tiny show windows stuffed with animated designs like postage stamps or campaign badges from imaginary wars or bags of innocent coloured candy, were already crowded with customers; while from the corporate enclaves terraced above the Corniche, men and women in designer clothes sauntered confidently towards the harbour restaurants, lifting their heads in anticipation of Earth cuisine, harbour lights on the wine-dark sea, then a late-night trip to Moneytown – wealth creators, prosperity makers, a little too good for it all by their own account, yet mysteriously energised by everything cheap and tasteless.’
from Light by M. John Harrison
Absence Club 