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aurora rain
Member
since 2000-11-15
Posts 90


0 posted 2001-04-23 11:07 PM


this might be a bit long for some of you, but...it's a short story i wrote.

The little hotel. Well, I guess “little” was quite the understatement. It was grand, and it had graceful pillars and two entryways and its finish was of a white material—alabaster, I do believe. The entryways were black and pronounced and a contrast against the purity of its white walls, gaping as if perhaps it were an open mouth rounded into a perfect O, dark yet inviting.



I was afraid of the shrubs in the yard, however. Their tops were trimmed at a perfect 180-degree angle, and seemed not a bit under or over. It made me wonder about the landscaper, if he measured the shrubs before or after trimming. If he was obsessive-compulsive, if he trimmed each shrub to the millimeter, if he threw an anxious fit each time he was off, even slightly. If he was even a he at all. Perhaps he was a she, and perhaps when she was finished trimming she’d remove her gardener’s gloves and wash her hands until they bled. Perhaps she’d check the lock on the gate twenty or so times until she was absolutely certain it was locked.



I drove on by, passing the hotel. Perhaps I have an overactive imagination. Mike always said I did.



“You know, you need to stop imagining things, Dara,” he’d say when I’d look out the window while doing the evening dishes and watch the children play in the yard. I always kept that window closed, sealing away all hope of hearing the chaotic melodies the childrens’ voices made each evening ring in my ears. I made up dialogues between the children, though. I’d name the little curly-haired brunette Amanda and the tall lanky blonde Brian.



And in my imagination, they had a romance. At no more than twelve years old, they had a romance. There were tiny hands grasping one another, angel kisses at dusk (no more than innocent pecks, like doves, eyes peacefully closed, efficacy well-spent: the purity was well-understood), crumpled pieces of lined paper passed between the two, cheeks flushed red with embarrassment at the bus stop.



And I didn’t really know what was going on. With myself, with my life, with them. I mean, they didn’t even have the ability to think at complex moral levels yet. (Neither did I, but I was well into adulthood and time had failed me.) I was certain my story was far from the truth, but well, it was nice enough of a preoccupation anyway.



“Why, Mike? What harm does it do to have an imagination?”



“Dara, there are two worlds. Fantasy and reality. Your mind is too much in the former.”



“Well.....it’s a getaway sometimes, Mike. And I need a getaway.”



“Go to the Bahamas.”



I’d been. He told me to go to a foreign country, but I didn’t have the money, or the experience, or the language skills. So I went on a drive, with no real itinerary and no real road map besides the one in my head (and if you’d imagine the road map a woman with an overactive imagination had planned!)



I saw countryside, acres of green with their plentiful arms stretching and beckoning, their hills round and protruding like bellies after castle meals. And I saw the hotel. And I remembered. And I remembered.



I recalled haughty older women with their tight-lipped smiles and coral lipstick and British-gray hair in buns and Chanel perfume, too much perfume. I remembered wiry and silent bellhops with heavy brows and unfortunate winces as they hoisted suitcases over shoulders and begged with their eyes at the end of the trip up the staircase for just a small tip.



“Did you know there are three-hundred and sixty-five rooms in this hotel?” an especially memorable one of the bellhops asked me when I arrived. I was the forty-fifth guest that day, or so I was told.



“I didn’t.”



“Yes, one for every day of the year. Rumor has it that the Queen of...ah, what is it, on the tip of my tongue, can’t recall....Monaco, maybe? Anyway, she stayed here for an entire year while attending press conferences and such. Each day she stayed in a different room.”



“That’s...interesting, sir.”



“No, not sir....call me Jon.”



“All right, Jon. That’s a nice name. Casual, but not overly so.” I extended my hand. “Dara Armstrong. Now, where is my room?”



“It’s right around the corner, Miss Dara. April the seventeenth.”



“April the seventeenth? What significance does that have? Isn’t today October the first?”



“Yes, Miss Dara, but the Queen had her stay in that room on April the seventeenth.”



“Ah.” Ironically, April the seventeenth was the day I met Mike.



Jon set my bags down as he reached into his pocket for the key, fumbling with the door locks as the door opened with an animate squeak, its brass hinges desperately crying to be oiled.



Why I had forgotten, I will never know. But his eyes lit up the way an Olympic torch flame does when he looked at me, their gaze burning into my flesh, my face beginning to grow pink with warmth. I was...embarrassed, to say the least. I thought I was imagining it. But he seemed interested in me, attracted to me even. However, I didn’t want to point that out for fear the emotion would become a reality, and what if it didn’t exist in the first place?



“Thank you, Jon.” I handed him a crumpled up five-dollar bill.



He smiled warmly. “Any time.”



I shut the door, walked over to my suitcase, searching for my swimsuit, and possibly a towel, so that I could lay out in the sun beside the pool.



I wondered how I could afford this stay. I wasn’t Queen of Monaco. I didn’t even have enough money to buy the china sets I always wanted. Or to go to therapy, which Mike claimed I desperately needed for some reason. I didn’t see for what, exactly. I mean, I just thought about people. I thought about what they did and how they lived and what they thought. I found them beautiful, miraculous, spectacular, intriguing, colorful. If that somehow denoted a need for therapy, then, well, they could send me away.



I walked out of the room, the cries of the door hinges startling me slightly as I closed it behind me. Down the corridor a few feet I saw Jon, standing near the refreshment bar drinking a soda. Or maybe it was a beer, although he didn’t look like the type who drank.



“Hello, Miss Dara.”



“Hello.”



He furrowed his brow a little. “So tell me about your life.”



I was startled. This came out of nowhere, his asking, as if he were obligated to know me, or me to know him. For us to have some sort of bond. Because in my mind, he was quite possibly the sort of person I could have a bond with.



“Well...it is a long story. Do you have the time?”



“Yes, I do.”



“Well....why don’t you ask me a few questions, then?”



“All right. Do you have a husband?”



“Yes, I do. But I’m not happy with him. He criticizes me all the time.”



“What do you mean, criticize?”



“I mean he tells me I live in a fantasy world. He tells me I need to stop making stories for faces. That I need therapy.”



“Well.”



“Do you think I do? I mean, I feel kind of...hopeless with him. Like maybe I should stay just for the mere fact that change is....well, kind of difficult for me to deal with. But it seems like things will fall apart. There’s nothing I can do about that.”



He raised his eyebrows. Bit his lip contemplatively, and his eyes seemed so interested in what I had to say that I almost interrupted his gaze to stare at the floor. I almost broke the chain.



“Things falling apart? You can fix that if you want to. I mean, it’s not your relationship, or even your life, for that matter, falling apart the way, say, an earthquake makes things fall apart. A force of nature, you know? This is a matter of action. If you take action, things are not hopeless. This is not an act of God or nature that is beyond your control.”



“You’re right. But I have to leave. I’m slowly confounding the problem if I stay. I can’t afford this hotel, and I can’t afford to remember. Not consciously.”



He looked hurt, bewildered by my statement, but then he smiled. He had made a difference. Or so he thought.



“It was nice staying here, Jon. Nice imagining what it was like for all of you, what you thought. Tell the gardener I hope his OCD gets better.”



I walked away. It was easy to walk away, to defy everything he had just told me, even though it was true. I needed hope. I needed better things than an imagination. But I didn’t have to first clue where to start. So I chose the beginning.



So I got in the car, after gathering my things, and drove back on the road leading home. The countryside and the soft sloping hills of green quickly transformed themselves into cityscape and smog. I was nearing home. Nearing reality.



When I got to the door, I paused for a moment. I sighed. Closing my eyes, I reached for the knob, turning it slowly clockwise, pulling it towards me. I took two steps inside, the sight of Amanda and Brian dancing in the yard next door still in view of my peripheral vision.



There was no one there, for once. No one at all, besides me, and my imagination, left to run wild. So I sat down with a notebook and a pencil, and began to write.



I could finally find something beautiful to waste my imagination on. Only it wasn’t a waste. It was a blessing.



I know I can’t prevent an earthquake. But my life is not beyond my control. And I can pretend I knew that all along. I can remember to forget.



© Copyright 2001 aurora rain - All Rights Reserved
J.L. Humphres
Member
since 2000-01-03
Posts 201
Alabama
1 posted 2001-05-12 01:48 AM


Aurora,
  This is a very interesting piece. It seems it should go on to me. The structure is sound and flows well the language is appealing also. Good piece.
                  J.L.H.

Jason
God is a warm whisper from the cool void.
Jack Kerouac

obscurity of cloud
Member
since 2001-05-11
Posts 294
....:::::******:::::....
2 posted 2001-05-12 03:15 PM


The scenery is great; i really get a feel of setting.  It has a certain sense of peace that i really appreciate.

"so when at times the mob is swayed to carry praise or blame too far, we may choose something like a star" --Frost

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