I counted, and this is six sentences (of mine) but I didn’t feel like waiting for the next Six Sentence Sunday (I’m scheduled out through New Year’s) so here it is. The setting is Berlin, c. 2025, following the Great Change. Elsa’s mentor is describing an encounter in a Berlin hotel on the night of the full moon.

Under the unearthly light of the hotel bar, which was only neon and mirrors, a wizened old man in an eighteenth-century wig and a filthy military jacket argued with the barman. He was no ghost, for the smell was palpable. 

He was arguing about statecraft, in elegant and sarcastic French, though with a German accent.

Nor was he homeless, except in the sense that all full-moon travelers in Berlin were homeless: he had been Emperor of Prussia in his day, and had taken a royal liking to the cuisine, as well as to the barman’s touch with American cocktails. 

However, the barman told him, the patronage of Frederick the Great was no great favor, not only on account of the emperor’s personal habits, but his rather minimal notion of a proper tip. He did not look forward to full-moon nights.