Six flights of stairs and a turn of a key.
A hinge screams as the door is pushed open–whoops, I wanted to be quiet, too late now.
Creeping inside I close the door and kick off my shoes, the facade of silence is removed but I continue moving lightly for nothing but my own sense of politeness
Why though? There is no one else here, only the collection of forgotten days and a blanket of undisturbed dust; this place seems almost defined by absence, A coiling nothing that repeats like some skipping record, a steady beat flicking again and again some way off in the distance–maybe just a dripping tap.
I step over the path worn in the carpet before me. I move with care, walking along this corridor that many have passed through before. Tight knots of atrophied carpet creak under my step, I turn and see my footfall in the floor below: the first signs of life that this room had known for seemingly centuries, my standing here a contrast to the years of stillness.
I walk on and inhale the stagnant air with closed eyes, neglect had formed a denseness that intermingled with mold and stale dust. This powdered dryness that seems to hold the room around it in stasis.
I am here, an anomaly in an empty lot, intruding on and giving life to the room around me.
Wait.
A shape, a man standing in the corner of the empty room.
A dark suit and darker eyes; he stands calmly, straight with contemplation, facing the solid brick wall, searching for something within the painted render.
‘There’d be a hell of a view if this wall wasn’t here,’ he steps forward squinting at the wall more intently, ‘hell of a view!’
‘What, who are you!?’ I ask, thrown by this unexpected company, ‘I thought I was alone.’
‘Well, I am here as you are here, living as things do. Spider eats fly, bird eats spider, cat eats bird, man eats cat. Assigning reason to the progression of the world is only likely to give you a headache. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d quite like to look at this wall again’, he said, turning back toward the wall, tutting slightly as if in deep consideration, appraising some challenging piece of artwork.
‘No this isn’t on, you have no right! You can not be in this place, you simply must leave!’ I quiver, seeing that the apparition had already disappeared. Huffing at the intrusion of my own paranoia I move onward, abandoning my careful step.
The single seater couch, pushed thoughtlessly into the corner, stood obstinate against the barren room, it’s thread-bare material faded beyond the ability to identify an original colour. A tuft of interior padding jutted from the armrest and clawed for freedom, a sproutling bud that chases the sun as it ebbs through drawn curtains for but a brief moment each day.
I drop my bag onto the couch and the resulting plume of dust bursts into the air like nuclear fallout; eventually the dust returns to stillness; I sigh, forgetting my anger.
I squint through the din and find the lightswitch to bear no electricity. Power seemingly absent to the entire building I sit on the kitchen bench and light a cigarette.
‘Smoking isn’t allowed here you know?’ My exhaled breath spoke to me as it twisted and danced away toward the open window, ‘but don’t worry, no one else seems to care,’ Dissapaiting, the lady in the smoke laughed and left me once again alone. Hurriedly I draw another breath and exhale hoping to ask this lady where I truly was, but she had left: they all seem to have left.
This night will pass and many more beyond it. But as I walk free from this room tomorrow morning, will I know it again?
Maybe one day.
A review of the Grandstand Motel, Claymore.
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 