Jane Unrue: Love Hotel

Immediately striking was the silence

no faint music

low lighting inducing a feeling of

One morning a man and his wife were working in the hay.

I felt none of what I had imagined feeling before I left my apartment building

none of what I felt when I got on the train.

Encased in frosted glass marked by a placard indicating no sign in requirements was the reception desk. The room selection panel resided in a dim corridor indicated by a freestanding sign to the left of the reception desk. As the guidebook explained some room selection panels display color photographs amenities the prices peak off peak. This was just a grid of numbered buttons lit ones vacant not too many vacants. Press it stick your card key falls card pops means time has come to leave behind the lobby.

I took the elevator

sweet perfume entwined in smoky men’s cologne

up.

On the train I imagined that I was the woman sitting across from me. I have no memory of what this woman looked like what she was wearing what possessions she had with her on the train.

Right back into the elevator.

L

The man told his wife to climb up on the stack of hay.

After an unproductive stop at the room selection panel I slid my key under the reception desk window. Excuse me this room seems to be missing I said. A form appeared behind the frosted glass. I looked all over two but it’s not there I said. The sound of sandy bottom shoes. Another key beneath the window.

So there’s tile back there behind the reception desk I told myself.

New key in hand I passed the room selection corridor again.

Dark carpeting out here

embellished

3

the elevator closing

with an even darker pattern conveying a message that eyes might peek from underneath the pattern in the hope of catching someone’s falling gaze.

On the train while imagining that I was the woman sitting across from me I slipped into a dream that I was in a country cottage taking care of a little boy. I don’t know how old the boy was. I recall observing that although he was a little boy he seemed very small for his age. When I awoke due to a jolt experienced by the train the woman sitting across from me was looking straight into my eyes. I remember thinking: I know what you’re thinking you’re right under the circumstances there is no surprise in this.

What was truly shocking however was that the little boy in the dream

I remember remembering

was not just small for his age he was downright tiny my eyes wandering to the train window as if I might see him careening white against the black sky. He was a boy whom I regarded as birdlike. He was not at any time in the dream a bird. As long as he was alive he was a boy the real point of the dream seeming to be that somehow this little boy had died in my arms his body having been transferred to a large heavy plate in my lap.

As a clock in the cottage slowly ticked I

midnight on the train

I watched the decomposing of the boy on the

noonday in the dream

blood

organs

flesh

The man disappeared into the field.

It was in response to their plea that my journey was initiated.

When a person who has not known suffering walks into a certain kind of room she will be saddened shocked confused by what she feels

by what she knows

has happened there.

After a quick run through of my belongings I emerged from my apartment building with my rolling suitcase tote bag other little things that I might

matchbook in my hand

I was recalling information so ornately

irresistibly

The night we met he motioned to a padded chair said Please sit down . He filled our glasses. Candles glowed expectantly. The air was crisp the details intimately

mesmerizingly

the edges laced in black

black satin piping

jewel encrusted insects

black

adhered to

There’s a spider

jewelbacked

on the

Now it’s on the

Thus the story

white French netting

had begun.

A peanut butter sandwich candy muffin peanuts water notebook in my tote bag suitcase smartly packed it was already dark when the train pulled out of the station.

As soon as one layer of the little boy vanished the next layer vanished until eventually save the bones the tufts of hair the scatterings of dust no head there was not anything remaining on the plate.

I took the elevator right back down to L.

When I arrived at that hotel identified

It’s one of those she whispered where they go for just one night.

as where to stay

their guidebook not at all insistent

Know what I mean? she whispered.

by a matchbook

instantly my feelings totally

Day Four: Having recently returned from walking to the CORNER

SOUTHMOST of their estate where once a tiny house had stood we

I felt so at home I knew that I could never get enough. I did not want to leave. I could not even bear to think about a time when I would

were together on the VERANDAH.

When I got to that hotel however I stepped down into the patio protected by a wall of textured brick. A flagstone walkway curved around a bed of flowers.

Filled with dread I tried to keep from seeing

hearing

There is someone in my room I repeated into the tiny opening in the frosted glass window of the reception desk.

I mean to say I tried so hard to keep from being seen.

New key in hand I took the elevator up.

I’ll try to trace this back to where it started from.

The night we met

One day a man and his wife

as I proceeded down their HALLWAY

SECOND FLOOR

then down their STAIRCASE

MAIN

were working in the

down the HALLWAY

GROUND FLOOR

passing three closed doors

I felt so homesick for my bed

my windows

floors

were working in the

even for my walls . But at the same time just as soon as I had seen them seated in their STUDY I

We’d both completely understand he said to me when five nights later we had moved to the VERANDAH where she said to me If you feel you can’t do it

When the night we met I saw them seated in the STUDY I felt more at home than I had ever felt before. But previous to that moment I had

They were working in the hay.

As I proceeded down the HALLWAY

SECOND FLOOR I passed the door into their NURSERY

DAY. If I had gone inside the NURSERY

DAY then stepped into the

Had I innocently crossed the border from the one into the other then I might have found a secret doorway to a tightly curling staircase down into the GROUND FLOOR corner of their KITCHEN terminating on their BASEMENT floor.

You see

We’d both completely understand.

the night we met they took me out to their estate.

They took me in their mansion.

Led me up the STAIRCASE

NORTH

up to the SECOND FLOOR where all the bedrooms were. We have two nurseries up here too he said. Connected from inside . He pointed to a door. Explaining that attaching to the NURSERY

DAY was

No there was not any hallway door into the NURSERY

NIGHT. The only way to get into the NURSERY

NIGHT was if you entered through

He said But you won’t need to go in there .

Across the hall then down a bit she opened up a door into a pretty lemon yellow

sitting room connected to a bathroom. She said When you’ve freshened up

C ome down he interrupted.

You can find us in the study she said.