Gaudy Room

The gaudy room. A motel-like quality, cheaply furnished. Everything replaceable. The flicker of a spastic neon light, buzzing bright, colours streams of snow - Arabian desert reds, martian greens, bowling ball blues. 

My head feels whiskey heavy, consciousness like an enthusiastic band of teenagers skinny dipping in an icy ocean, that is, merrily running out into the water, only to retreat as the cool waves crash around their feet. Sit up. Repress the urge to vomit. Don't want to turn the lamp on; don't want to illuminate this den of debauched behaviour. Only want to flee. Feel suddenly that there's a heart beat next to me. 

Creep quietly. 

*

The knot of the tie still on my neck. Button the shirt of respectability, suspect stains of different colours. Hair must be wild, untamed, a grizzled wolf grey. My predatory eyes of throbbing red burn silently. Sat in the chair, the Throne of the Damned, I monitor the woman (the woman that's not my wife) nestled in the sheets. Her body makes tiny motions, tremors, barely discernible. And I realise that there is a 21 year old heart in my body of 49. You were once very much not a domestic Goddess, remember? You were drunk on daddy's dime, studying  smoking and having sex in college. And you wore fertile colours of dripping wet biology. 

Shuffle into a bathroom that looks vaguely like it belongs in a psychiatric ward. Igloo white walls strobe through my head. Just want to brush my teeth. Vile breath of River Styx pours forth from my mouth, a slow stench of industrial waste intensity, creeping back into my nose. Invasive toothbrush, unwelcome visitor. I want to cry in the shower. 

Place the briefcase near the door to ensure speed of getaway. Don hat, of course. Overcoat and it's over. If she could hear the clack of the door closing. The hallway is a different kind of empty, like you're a lonely spaceman, floating in the depths of space empty. 

*

Employee at reception, eyes focused on a TV displaying a sports match, a replay. A replay means you watch it again. Vigilant demeanour, serious expression, head that seems to move in owl like fashion. 

"Can you do me a favour?" 

"..." 

I take the envelope from my briefcase and place it down on the desk. 

"There's a girl in room 21 - could you make sure someone gives this to her?"

Wearing the expression of someone accustomed to playing the role of discreet facilitator of shady background happenings, the following response: "yes", and still more blankness, robotic disinterest as the ball whirls, struck violently with a bat. You could be waiting for me in the carpark, and to be honest, I really wouldn't care. But you're not. And my tetris car of box like shape gasps into life, and I purr away into the snowstorm, thinking, thinking, thinking.