"Can you tell me which thing is not like the others?"
I am in a very dazed state right now, having not slept or eaten much lately. Plus I'm under the influence of ADD medications to keep me awake. Oh dear. Anyway, here is the second chapter, though I don't like it nearly as much as the first, but maybe that's because I'm sort of letting it go in it's own direction rather that controlling it.
Chapter 2
The bus halted breathily beside the glittering hotel, with a modernity that only comes from black paneling and stainless steel. The mangy yellow bus did not seem to belong near such a spectacle as the Blue Knight Hotel. Slowly, the several sleepy bodies that had weathered the journey rose and stretched, and we clambered off of the sweaty contraption. A compartment opened in the side of the bus where we had shoved our bags at the beginning of the day, our dress clothes so carefully packed inside surely creased and rumpled. Crowds of other students like us mobbed the lobby of the hotel, clutching instruments like infants.
Though the sun had perhaps just finished setting, we were exhausted from traveling all day and we made our gradual way through the mounds of eager adolescents to the elevators. Victor handed Brad two keys to room 442.
“Here,” said Brad, casually holding the spare out to me.
“Mm,” I muttered in response, having nothing wittier to say in response. I turned to see what had become of Valorie, but the crowd had swallowed her. We loaded the elevator to maximum capacity, and most of the numbered lights twinkled in response to the commands of greedy thumbs pressing them in, a mechanical order. The elevator must not have been replaced in a good fifty years; it puttered and strained against the combined weight of us and our clunky instrument cases filled with the potential for beautiful music.
Brad stepped out of the lift first, making a beeline for our new shared abode, hardly struggling against the bags and the enormous cello that weighed him down. He slid the key effortlessly through the door, and the door blinked a friendly green in response.
The first thing I noticed about the grand room was its scent. There was a distinct hint of laundry detergent from the freshly made beds. The carpet, too, must have been recently replaced. Though smoking had not been allowed in these rooms for years, there was still a lingering hint of the last lonely young woman, at the Blue Knight for some trivial meeting, lighting up a Camel to relieve the stress of her day.
Opposite the needlessly over-blanketed beds was a wide mirror, reflecting a landscape painting by some anonymous that transitioned from ocean to field to mountain to valley across its impossible width. We would sleep underneath this for the week.
I realized after claiming the bed closest to the darkened window that the door between rooms 442 and 440 was slightly ajar, and I could see Valorie hesitantly unloading her surprisingly compact suitcase into some drawers beneath the television set. Her roommate, the always unnervingly silent Katja, observed from a rigid seated position on her somehow more severely tucked bed.
“How’d you beat us up here?” I inquired, thrusting the door all the way open.
“I took the stairs. I knew it would be faster than waiting in line for the elevator.” Valorie said with a hint of a smile. She was always the one of us with common sense.
“Too much effort,” called Brad in his rich tenor voice, evaluating the smells of the complementary shampoo and conditioner sets. I laughed weakly, too softly for him to hear over the constant murmur and thuds from the hall where others were still noisily finding their accommodations for this most prestigious of weeks. Valorie subtly gestured for me to come into her room, and I did.
“So, Seth, how do you like sharing a room with Brad?” she commented dryly. I shrugged slightly, acutely aware of Katja’s stare.
“I brought my pipe,” called Brad again. He sauntered so coolly over to his bag where he procured the prize, followed by a plastic baggie full of the good stuff and a lighter. “Look, all we have to do is blow out the window, and make sure nobody comes in.” As he said this, he expertly clicked the lock and deadbolt to the hallway. I was surprised to see Katja follow Valorie and I back into my room, where one of us opened the window to the clear night.
Brad loaded the pipe while we stood, awkwardly clustered by the window, in silence. He snapped the metal wheel of the lighter and the smell of combusting marijuana briefly hung in the air before taking flight through the screen as he shaped his perfect lips into an O and exhaled. I was next. I still fumbled with the mechanism a little, though I had done this often before, finally filling up my lungs and my brain with smoke. And then releasing it out into the night.
Valorie had probably smoked more times than she would readily admit, though it was apparent as she matter-of-factly snatched the pipe from me and lit it for herself. I realized then-I had never been high around any of these people. I was unsure how I would respond to these circumstances.
Katja was last, and she let out a hidden giggle before doing the deed, the first sound of humanity that had ever escaped her.
That night, it felt somehow ritualistic, four people endlessly passing around a tiny trinket containing an herbal escape from life. We remained in near silence, emitting only a word here, and a cough there, until our burning throats and shivering minds could take no more.
Brad finally shattered the silence by setting the pipe down with a clink and announcing, “ Room service has food!” We all erupted in never-ending laughter that made the room hum a vibrant yellow. Shuddering slightly as he glided, Brad picked up the telephone receiver (“Telephones are such a brilliant invention!”) and ordered the first meal on the menu (“That sounds so good!”) and we sat on the floor to await our feast.
Katja talked freely now, a genie released, but it was not her that I was focused on. I gazed around the room in rapt amazement, each meticulously placed item a beauty in its own right. The landscape that had been so unclear to me before now clearly represented the entire world, each brushstroke so deliberate, so beautiful. I wished I could always see things in such a light. I looked at this group who I was attached to for the coming week. I loved Valorie with every last straining vein in my body. Katja was bubbling over, emerging as a real person.
And then there was Bradley. His face shown in the pale light of the room. His body resembling that of a frail aspen tree. He was, to my sight, perfection. He sang a little to counter the endless flow of Katja’s words. His voice enveloped the old-time love ballad, and seemed to echo harmoniously through my head. Valorie noticed my glassy-eyed, bloodshot, gaze of affection towards Brad. She began to laugh, her face alight with joy as she struggled to spit out coherent words, reiterating quite loudly in my ear how much I had fallen for Brad. Thankfully, he was paying for the Chicken Cordon Bleu we had ordered seemingly ages before as she said this.
We gorged ourselves, engaged in more philosophical debate, and finally made our way into our respective beds, though the clock only read 10:00. I shut off my light and relaxed into my pillow. It was so warm.
I stand in the middle of a dense forest at midday, though little light shines through the clotted foliage. Around my neck I bear a tight, heavy chain with a plate I somehow know reads “Seth” or “Ace.” I reach to remove my collar, but there is some unseen force that prevents my hand from quite touching the metal.
“You can’t remove it,” a voice tells me. A familiar voice. Then he materializes. The Boy from the desert. Still naked. Still a statuesque glimmer. His powerful grey eyes meet mine again, and I am rooted to the spot. A blackbird loudly calls nearby, then flutters to the next nearest branch. The branch snaps and erupts into flames as the bird shrinks into oblivion.
“Where am I?” I try to ask, but only a choked whisper comes out of my astonished throat. The Boy answers anyway.
“You are home.”
I begin to quake under the power of his spell. I shiver in the chill of the lonely forest where day has so abruptly turned to night. But still I see his form, somehow illuminated from within, passionately cold eyes married to a face of fire and a body of only the mythical heroes who protect their mythical lands. He speaks again.
“Take me with you.”
I am melting into his forced love and I feel his rough arms squeeze me though he has not moved. I break eye contact and I run away from his fearsome face. The Boy does not follow. The woods become blacker the further I run, until I cannot see anything. I fall into an unseen pit.
I lay there in the pure darkness of 442 for several long moments. I evaluated what I had just seen. Had it been the same boy in my dream from earlier today? It must have been, from the eyes. I glanced over at my clock, which had allowed only one half hour of time to pass since I had fallen asleep. It was then that I carefully padded out of our room, into the iridescent hallway and tripped down the stairs into the lobby of the famous Blue Knight.
The gift shop was loaded with many useless knickknacks for the impressionable nobodies that have the opportunity to pass through. The golden edged pages caught the bright overhead of the shop, a small diary that I knew, in my delirium, was meant for me. I tugged some crumpled bills out of my pocket (was I still wearing my clothes?) and handed them to the cashier, nearly forgetting my change as I sought out a table for me to sit at and write down these mysteriously connected dreams. They had been so vivid, did they really mean something? I would be sure to ask Valorie what she thought in the morning. She always had some sort of insight.
I scribbled down what I remembered, and wandered somehow back into my assigned room.
“Seth? Is that you?” Brad murmured, half asleep.
I slipped back under the welcoming sheets and placed my head carefully back on the pillow. It wasn’t so warm anymore.
Chapter 2
The bus halted breathily beside the glittering hotel, with a modernity that only comes from black paneling and stainless steel. The mangy yellow bus did not seem to belong near such a spectacle as the Blue Knight Hotel. Slowly, the several sleepy bodies that had weathered the journey rose and stretched, and we clambered off of the sweaty contraption. A compartment opened in the side of the bus where we had shoved our bags at the beginning of the day, our dress clothes so carefully packed inside surely creased and rumpled. Crowds of other students like us mobbed the lobby of the hotel, clutching instruments like infants.
Though the sun had perhaps just finished setting, we were exhausted from traveling all day and we made our gradual way through the mounds of eager adolescents to the elevators. Victor handed Brad two keys to room 442.
“Here,” said Brad, casually holding the spare out to me.
“Mm,” I muttered in response, having nothing wittier to say in response. I turned to see what had become of Valorie, but the crowd had swallowed her. We loaded the elevator to maximum capacity, and most of the numbered lights twinkled in response to the commands of greedy thumbs pressing them in, a mechanical order. The elevator must not have been replaced in a good fifty years; it puttered and strained against the combined weight of us and our clunky instrument cases filled with the potential for beautiful music.
Brad stepped out of the lift first, making a beeline for our new shared abode, hardly struggling against the bags and the enormous cello that weighed him down. He slid the key effortlessly through the door, and the door blinked a friendly green in response.
The first thing I noticed about the grand room was its scent. There was a distinct hint of laundry detergent from the freshly made beds. The carpet, too, must have been recently replaced. Though smoking had not been allowed in these rooms for years, there was still a lingering hint of the last lonely young woman, at the Blue Knight for some trivial meeting, lighting up a Camel to relieve the stress of her day.
Opposite the needlessly over-blanketed beds was a wide mirror, reflecting a landscape painting by some anonymous that transitioned from ocean to field to mountain to valley across its impossible width. We would sleep underneath this for the week.
I realized after claiming the bed closest to the darkened window that the door between rooms 442 and 440 was slightly ajar, and I could see Valorie hesitantly unloading her surprisingly compact suitcase into some drawers beneath the television set. Her roommate, the always unnervingly silent Katja, observed from a rigid seated position on her somehow more severely tucked bed.
“How’d you beat us up here?” I inquired, thrusting the door all the way open.
“I took the stairs. I knew it would be faster than waiting in line for the elevator.” Valorie said with a hint of a smile. She was always the one of us with common sense.
“Too much effort,” called Brad in his rich tenor voice, evaluating the smells of the complementary shampoo and conditioner sets. I laughed weakly, too softly for him to hear over the constant murmur and thuds from the hall where others were still noisily finding their accommodations for this most prestigious of weeks. Valorie subtly gestured for me to come into her room, and I did.
“So, Seth, how do you like sharing a room with Brad?” she commented dryly. I shrugged slightly, acutely aware of Katja’s stare.
“I brought my pipe,” called Brad again. He sauntered so coolly over to his bag where he procured the prize, followed by a plastic baggie full of the good stuff and a lighter. “Look, all we have to do is blow out the window, and make sure nobody comes in.” As he said this, he expertly clicked the lock and deadbolt to the hallway. I was surprised to see Katja follow Valorie and I back into my room, where one of us opened the window to the clear night.
Brad loaded the pipe while we stood, awkwardly clustered by the window, in silence. He snapped the metal wheel of the lighter and the smell of combusting marijuana briefly hung in the air before taking flight through the screen as he shaped his perfect lips into an O and exhaled. I was next. I still fumbled with the mechanism a little, though I had done this often before, finally filling up my lungs and my brain with smoke. And then releasing it out into the night.
Valorie had probably smoked more times than she would readily admit, though it was apparent as she matter-of-factly snatched the pipe from me and lit it for herself. I realized then-I had never been high around any of these people. I was unsure how I would respond to these circumstances.
Katja was last, and she let out a hidden giggle before doing the deed, the first sound of humanity that had ever escaped her.
That night, it felt somehow ritualistic, four people endlessly passing around a tiny trinket containing an herbal escape from life. We remained in near silence, emitting only a word here, and a cough there, until our burning throats and shivering minds could take no more.
Brad finally shattered the silence by setting the pipe down with a clink and announcing, “ Room service has food!” We all erupted in never-ending laughter that made the room hum a vibrant yellow. Shuddering slightly as he glided, Brad picked up the telephone receiver (“Telephones are such a brilliant invention!”) and ordered the first meal on the menu (“That sounds so good!”) and we sat on the floor to await our feast.
Katja talked freely now, a genie released, but it was not her that I was focused on. I gazed around the room in rapt amazement, each meticulously placed item a beauty in its own right. The landscape that had been so unclear to me before now clearly represented the entire world, each brushstroke so deliberate, so beautiful. I wished I could always see things in such a light. I looked at this group who I was attached to for the coming week. I loved Valorie with every last straining vein in my body. Katja was bubbling over, emerging as a real person.
And then there was Bradley. His face shown in the pale light of the room. His body resembling that of a frail aspen tree. He was, to my sight, perfection. He sang a little to counter the endless flow of Katja’s words. His voice enveloped the old-time love ballad, and seemed to echo harmoniously through my head. Valorie noticed my glassy-eyed, bloodshot, gaze of affection towards Brad. She began to laugh, her face alight with joy as she struggled to spit out coherent words, reiterating quite loudly in my ear how much I had fallen for Brad. Thankfully, he was paying for the Chicken Cordon Bleu we had ordered seemingly ages before as she said this.
We gorged ourselves, engaged in more philosophical debate, and finally made our way into our respective beds, though the clock only read 10:00. I shut off my light and relaxed into my pillow. It was so warm.
I stand in the middle of a dense forest at midday, though little light shines through the clotted foliage. Around my neck I bear a tight, heavy chain with a plate I somehow know reads “Seth” or “Ace.” I reach to remove my collar, but there is some unseen force that prevents my hand from quite touching the metal.
“You can’t remove it,” a voice tells me. A familiar voice. Then he materializes. The Boy from the desert. Still naked. Still a statuesque glimmer. His powerful grey eyes meet mine again, and I am rooted to the spot. A blackbird loudly calls nearby, then flutters to the next nearest branch. The branch snaps and erupts into flames as the bird shrinks into oblivion.
“Where am I?” I try to ask, but only a choked whisper comes out of my astonished throat. The Boy answers anyway.
“You are home.”
I begin to quake under the power of his spell. I shiver in the chill of the lonely forest where day has so abruptly turned to night. But still I see his form, somehow illuminated from within, passionately cold eyes married to a face of fire and a body of only the mythical heroes who protect their mythical lands. He speaks again.
“Take me with you.”
I am melting into his forced love and I feel his rough arms squeeze me though he has not moved. I break eye contact and I run away from his fearsome face. The Boy does not follow. The woods become blacker the further I run, until I cannot see anything. I fall into an unseen pit.
I lay there in the pure darkness of 442 for several long moments. I evaluated what I had just seen. Had it been the same boy in my dream from earlier today? It must have been, from the eyes. I glanced over at my clock, which had allowed only one half hour of time to pass since I had fallen asleep. It was then that I carefully padded out of our room, into the iridescent hallway and tripped down the stairs into the lobby of the famous Blue Knight.
The gift shop was loaded with many useless knickknacks for the impressionable nobodies that have the opportunity to pass through. The golden edged pages caught the bright overhead of the shop, a small diary that I knew, in my delirium, was meant for me. I tugged some crumpled bills out of my pocket (was I still wearing my clothes?) and handed them to the cashier, nearly forgetting my change as I sought out a table for me to sit at and write down these mysteriously connected dreams. They had been so vivid, did they really mean something? I would be sure to ask Valorie what she thought in the morning. She always had some sort of insight.
I scribbled down what I remembered, and wandered somehow back into my assigned room.
“Seth? Is that you?” Brad murmured, half asleep.
I slipped back under the welcoming sheets and placed my head carefully back on the pillow. It wasn’t so warm anymore.