Jane Unrue - Love Hotel

I felt a chill beneath my skin.

How are you ever going to stand the pain of it when all of this is gone?

The countless days

The endless nights

I made it back to the hotel that evening only to discover there was nothing left.

Excuse me but is that thing working right I said into the tiny hole in the reception window. It says nothing’s left.

According to the form behind the frosted window there were vacancies on 2. There also were some vacancies on

3

4

5

Apparently a number’s being dark

6

7

did not mean the room was taken. Even 8. The way it worked was if the credit card transaction went through spitting out the key into the tray then you could rest assured except for rarest instances the room had been available.

So he the person I’ll be looking for he is he is your son then I had asked her. At this moment we were on the VERANDAH having recently returned from the CORNER

SOUTHMOST of the estate where a tiny house once stood.

He’s not our son she said.

I took the elevator up to 5 ascending through a building that seemed empty from the bottom to the top.

He’s not?

That morning

after struggling some

Hey sleepyhead . A gentle knocking on my door.

Whose there.

She said You hungry?

I awakened with a sense that while I slept I had received a long transmission during which my inner self had been awake. I understood that this communication met me as vibrations coming from a group of beings who were sometimes small at other times enormous. Irrespective of their sizes I recalled these creatures as

collectively

a dazzling play of light in everchanging forms.

I’ll be right down I answered after which I felt anticipation of a devastating sense of deprivation from which I was sure that once it started I would not be able to recover.

503

Headboard

Arcing row of tulips painted pastel colors.

Curtains white.

The underblind white vinyl.

I pulled down the underblind as soon as I walked in the door.

There were no pictures on the walls just squares of patterned fabric under glass that needed to be cleaned.

The bed was covered in a navy bedspread. Bed was framed in lathe turned posts all painted white

all scratched of course

two nightstands

scratched

a little oval table

scratched

The carpeting

As she explained

the last time they had seen him was at home.

And I remembered telling myself she said that there was something quite significant about what I had witnessed.

It was cool on the VERANDAH. (Night Five.) Seeing as a smallish walking tour had passed through roped off portions of the mansion during the day the feeling now was intimate. Entrancing. She explained that this

the last time she had seen him

was at nighttime. Hearing something

Had a funny feeling she said.

she had gotten out of bed gone downstairs to the kitchen seen him leaving through the kitchen door. She said And after that I went into the sitting room. Just waited.

We were enjoying dinner on the VERANDAH after having spent the afternoon down by the BOATHOUSE so as to avoid the guests when they were passing through the mansion with their guide.

She said But trying now to figure out what was significant about that sighting would

Require fabrication on her part he interrupted.

That is what he always says she said . What do you think?

was

navy

too

with

speckles

woven

in

the

navy

that

were

white

not

hungry

gnawing

stomach

so

I

lowered

my

uneaten

dinner

down

into

the

He said I’ll be back.

She said Me too. We’ll be right back .

Within the interval of their absence I became aware of something troubling in the atmosphere that permeated not just the VERANDAH but the whole of the estate. I also felt it all around the car two evenings later when I got into their car when they showed up to take me to the train.

Unlike the other nights on which I

402

had been awakened

407

by those cries that I could neither locate nor identify

On this night

503

the sound was more like singing

faintness having been the likely explanation for its failure to awaken me from dreaming. In the dream I slept inside a room that as I understood was mine. I heard the softest sound a singing barely more than whispers. In its failure fully to awaken me it caused in me a kind of split.

The room in which I slept was perfumed with the scent of roses. When I heard this voice that only partially had awakened me

the waking part of me

as if it had been touched in ways the sleeping part could never have been touched

then lifted out of me. It was an airy being peeling layer off of layer from my sleeping body in the bed. This being’s lifting off of me had caused my eyes to open. Watching from the bed I saw it hover then advance until it stopped. It then began to right itself into a pose like someone standing

feet remaining off the ground

then floated toward the door which opened as it neared it. From the bed I tracked its floating out the door into a darkness that I understood as dangerous but there was nothing I could do. The being’s sleeping dress was just like mine in back. It had my hair. My body’s shape. I tried to call to it. I even tried to get up out of bed go after it. No use. It disappeared into the dark. What’s more I had already drifted back to sleep. My point of view then transferred from the body in the bed

from me

to her

into the body that had floated out the door. So watching from my brand new floating self I looked back quickly checking taking note of

503

before emerging down the hall of darkness leading into still more halls of darkness. One by one they pulled me through them tilting me then sliding rocking sinking me as if I went through water. That the voice did not get louder softer meant that I was never getting closer to it

farther from it.

Suddenly I saw a tiny window lit up in the distance. Black lines crisscrossed on the window which was round. The window was

as I could understand with zero doubt as I was sinking closer to that crisscrossed iron pattern window

where the voice the singer was. Indeed as I approached I saw that there was someone in there backlit looking out at me.

But when I looked out from behind that window I forgot about the singer.

I

my point of view that is

You see my point of view had transferred to the pair of eyes behind the window instantly it seemed.

Through those dark eyes I looked out through the bars

for me

for her

There was nobody there.

THE NIGHT WE MET I also met a man whose question about a ride I answered in accordance with my policies on rides.

Awakened suddenly I got out of the bed put on my coat my boots my stomach digging at me no snacks left no interest. I went out into the hallway took the elevator all the way to 8 where down the hall wedged open was a door that led me to another staircase leading to the roof. I’m getting out of this I told myself as I emerged onto the roof. Tomorrow I am going home.

He stops looks up from where he stands but suddenly his vision is obscured not by the raking sun but by a kind of glaze that coats his eyes. He turns back heads in the direction of the park where he will hesitatingly

You should not go in there. You have a job to do.