Maybe you'll be blessed with the ability to rest for a few hours. Sometimes you can get that thing between consciousness and sleep where you're neither one nor the other. That happens sometimes. You almost prefer that to waking up from dreams which you thought were real during the night.
You find yourself at the end of the off ramp, a sunshine hotel across the street before you. You look both ways out of habit, not because you care, and cross the street.
You pull open the door and step into the air-conditioned lobby. You smell chlorine in the air. They must have a pool. That's probably going to make it more expensive, you figure. Maybe you can drown yourself in it.
The desk clerk jolts out of his seat when you drum on the counter; apparently you've interrupted nap time. This leaves you with a safe feeling about staying here. Maybe someone will break in and kill you, you muse morbidly.
The clerk gives you a key after taking 75 from you, not quite as bad a price as you had expected, but not quite as cheap as you would have liked. You take the key and follow the signs to the second floor hallway, where you find your room. It is directly in the center of the hall so that neither door is closer for you. Everything is an inconvenience anymore.
Unlocking the door, you walk inside and enter the room. It smells like a clean hotel room should; fresh linen and bathroom cleaner. Not like the half-dozen shitholes you've found in the previous nights.
It smells like your honeymoon suite without your wife’s aroma of vanilla and cinnamon. You feel a lump rise in your throat and fight back the tears again. You always fight them back, but sometimes they come. Not fighting them would be like admitting that she was gone. Truly gone.
You drop your pack and photograph the room in all its picturesque beauty. You shove the Polaroid in your journal, right along with the pictures of the shitholes of previous nights.
Then you set the camera on the bed and drop your jacket to the floor. The unpleasant aroma of your body wafts up to you. You probably need to shower and change your clothes. But the bed seems so inviting, and the shower may awaken you. Sleep comes rarely, but showers are nearly as rare.
You find yourself at the end of the off ramp, a sunshine hotel across the street before you. You look both ways out of habit, not because you care, and cross the street.
You pull open the door and step into the air-conditioned lobby. You smell chlorine in the air. They must have a pool. That's probably going to make it more expensive, you figure. Maybe you can drown yourself in it.
The desk clerk jolts out of his seat when you drum on the counter; apparently you've interrupted nap time. This leaves you with a safe feeling about staying here. Maybe someone will break in and kill you, you muse morbidly.
The clerk gives you a key after taking 75 from you, not quite as bad a price as you had expected, but not quite as cheap as you would have liked. You take the key and follow the signs to the second floor hallway, where you find your room. It is directly in the center of the hall so that neither door is closer for you. Everything is an inconvenience anymore.
Unlocking the door, you walk inside and enter the room. It smells like a clean hotel room should; fresh linen and bathroom cleaner. Not like the half-dozen shitholes you've found in the previous nights.
It smells like your honeymoon suite without your wife’s aroma of vanilla and cinnamon. You feel a lump rise in your throat and fight back the tears again. You always fight them back, but sometimes they come. Not fighting them would be like admitting that she was gone. Truly gone.
You drop your pack and photograph the room in all its picturesque beauty. You shove the Polaroid in your journal, right along with the pictures of the shitholes of previous nights.
Then you set the camera on the bed and drop your jacket to the floor. The unpleasant aroma of your body wafts up to you. You probably need to shower and change your clothes. But the bed seems so inviting, and the shower may awaken you. Sleep comes rarely, but showers are nearly as rare.
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