Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Holiday Inn, or a short story I wrote in my mobile while traveling by bus..


I just randomly checked into a hotel.

"Is that all you have with you?", the desk clerk said tiredly, while he violently jabbed a pencil into the electric pencil sharpener, filling the empty lobby with a violent whizzing sound.
"Yes, yes it is."

I wanted to be anonymous.
In an anonymous room.

The idea had occurred to me at the busstop. When I saw a young man's confusion at the unusual detour our bus was making. It shaked him up.
"I need to make a detour." I thought.
And when I looked up: there it was.

The hotel.

With darkened windows.

Only one room was lit.
It called me.

I knew I wasn't going home.

The room was perfect, as far as random rooms go.
Perfectly, anonymously, bland.

The bed, situated in the middle of the space, had crisp white sheets and a navy blue blanket.
Above it; a generic painting of a vase with flowers.
The kind of painting you can buy in bulk at a furniture shop.
Two little pink lamps stood on two wooden nightstands on either side of the bed.
A chair between the navy curtains that framed the window.

A view of the busstop and the station.

I looked at the spot where I had stood minutes before.
There was my heatsignal on the pavement.
It was getting on the bus that would take me home.
Followed the confused young man into certainty.
It looked up to me as it got in.
Begging me to reconsider.

I watched it go.

The room would give me the headspace I needed and nobody would be able to find me here.
Not even my heatsignal.

I looked at myself in the reflection on the window.

My hoodie was askew.

Slowly I stretched out my hand, caressed my reflection face and adjusted my hoodie.
Our hands touched.
Locked.

We looked at each other and smiled.

For a brief moment I was free....