I started out in search of ordinary things
Seems it’s moving day-they’d never settled on a precise date, but today Alan returns from the office to a hotel room marginally more bare and impersonal than the one he left that morning. Denny’s arranged everything, transforming (in typical Denny fashion) hours of back-wrenching labor into a vanishing act: now you see it, now you don’t. The place is immaculate, scrubbed clean of any traces of its previous occupant. Someone’s swept back the curtains and wan winter sunlight dribbles into the room.
To linger would defeat the very purpose of living out of a hotel, so Alan doesn’t. Briskly he inspects the suite for anything misplaced or forgotten, encountering not so much as a stray toothbrush.
He flips open his phone, scoops up his briefcase. “Denny,” he starts, and in the same moment Denny’s voice sputters forth: “Alan! What in God’s name do you expect me to do with all these-these books.”
“Well, call me a hidebound traditionalist, but you might consider reading”-turning his back to the room, Alan opens the door and steps through-“them.”
His phone’s gone quiet. The air’s changed, too-gone is the slightly stale stuff, faintly redolent of chemicals, that fills all hotel corridors-although the difference doesn’t register until after he’s tried and failed to redial.
When he looks up he takes a sharp breath, then swallows slowly. “How about that.”
To linger would defeat the very purpose of living out of a hotel, so Alan doesn’t. Briskly he inspects the suite for anything misplaced or forgotten, encountering not so much as a stray toothbrush.
He flips open his phone, scoops up his briefcase. “Denny,” he starts, and in the same moment Denny’s voice sputters forth: “Alan! What in God’s name do you expect me to do with all these-these books.”
“Well, call me a hidebound traditionalist, but you might consider reading”-turning his back to the room, Alan opens the door and steps through-“them.”
His phone’s gone quiet. The air’s changed, too-gone is the slightly stale stuff, faintly redolent of chemicals, that fills all hotel corridors-although the difference doesn’t register until after he’s tried and failed to redial.
When he looks up he takes a sharp breath, then swallows slowly. “How about that.”