Hotel room (Part 1) by Catterina Coha

Here come part one of “Hotel Room”

As per Catterina correspondence to me: “The first part is somewhat predictable but it sets up the rest”. Frankly, I think it is interesting and engaging on its own

Let us know what you all think.

Power lines

When the alarm woke her up at 6 AM, Madeleine could not think of a good reason to rise from bed. Nothing pleasant was waiting for her on that Saturday morning. She did not simply feel tired; she felt an underlying anxiety; a burdensome feeling of inadequateness pervaded her.

Slowly, she dragged herself to the bathroom and went into the shower without looking at herself in the mirror. Automatically, her mind was rehearsing the script for the play of the day: make coffee, put the last few things in the bag, do not forget the phone charger, get out of the house by 7 AM to make the 7:30 AM train, and so on. The entire daily schedule was planned with tasks to complete during the train ride, meetings and presentations, work dinner and eventually the night, alone, in an empty room with all the comforts of a luxury hotel, which she profoundly loathed.

The early spring morning was glowing with a clear blue sky and the fresh air was energizing. Perhaps influenced by an old nostalgic song that was played by the car radio, Madeleine momentarily conceded that she actually liked her life.

After all, she was busy because she was successful, and she was travelling to so many places in the world as she had often fantasized in her youth. But the sense of excitement that used to accompany each minor success in the past did not complement even the biggest of successes now. She had become used to failures and set backs just as much as she was to triumphs, to peaks and troughs seen more as an observer from a distant post.

That same indifference saturated almost everything. She knew that it was important to celebrate accomplishments for the people who worked for her, and did it in apparent enthusiasm, but deep inside it felt like a play in which she had become proficient as a stage character. In truth, there was no other reward for her soul beyond the recognition that she had survived another day.

While the train was running its course, making all planned stops to reach the final destination on time, it occurred to Madeleine that there was always a choice in life not to follow the predetermined path, not to labor through time to reach on schedule the final destination. Why not get off earlier, at a random station? The unexpected thought felt liberating in the powerful light of the morning sun. The welcoming world out there made irrelevant the worry about the consequences of getting off and about the nature of any haphazard place.

Madeleine’s mind quickly ceased wondering when she reached her destination for the day.

Entering the convention center was like entering the scene of a theater. The show was starting and Madeleine almost effortlessly transitioned into her character: an enthusiastic, energetic, curious and intelligent scientist, and she performed well all day long.

After the business dinner she had a drink with a colleague. They both needed a brake, but a well-controlled one: one drink, not two.

“I have to go finish some work” was the standard parting excuse.

“Me too” replied Madeleine with a big sympathetic smile that looked sincere.

Walking away from the bar, she looked almost sexy in the black skinny pants, almost teasing, and she attracted the attention of a couple of men who were hanging out at the bar in search for an opportunity. Yet, the message was clear about what Madeleine’s confident gait meant:

“Do not follow me”.

***

Once in her room, she felt oppressed. It did not happen right away, the view of the downtown skyscrapers glowing in the night was nice, but totally neutral, like a picture hanging on the wall. When she was younger the prospect of colorful big city life outside of the window was associated with excitement, but now it did not even occur to Madeleine that she could have gone for a walk along the beautiful river flowing not too far from the hotel.

Although she was tired, an unsettled anguish prevented her from relaxing and falling asleep. Following habit more than necessity, she sat at the desk and opened her laptop trying to work. There was a long list of overdue tasks, but she knew that none of them would have been accomplished in that late evening after a long day, when she could not focus to write even the shortest paragraph that could make any sense.

After the botched attempt to work, she looked for a distraction in the room. The coffee was her default choice; perhaps some caffeine would sharpen her mind and make her more productive. With a disappointment that transitioned into deep irritation she discovered that the coffee maker was broken. A couple of swearwords later, she opted not to call the concierge, considering that it would be too much aggravation for a cup of bad coffee. To counter the growing anxiety Madeleine opened the minibar, which was congested with all sorts of drinks, including a large variety of hard liquors.

Her first reaction was to close it again; she would be charged a ridiculous amount for opening one of the bottles. And the drink she had at the bar had given her a headache. She went to the bathroom to get a couple of pills, forgetting that she had already taken a couple only an hour earlier. She resolved that the only thing left to do was to go to sleep. The big comfortable bed, however, made her feel very lonely, it seemed wasted for a single person. Unable to lay down and relax, she finally decided that for once she would brake the rule and take a bottle, have a drink just to get sleepy.

The port wine was smooth and pleasant and after a large glass the mellowing power of the alcohol was slowly dissolving some of the walls that kept each compartment in her consciousness sharply separated, and unlocked doors that had been untouched for a long while.

She thought of people she had loved and of one person whom perhaps she still loved. He had reciprocated her love with genuine passion in the brief days that they had spent together. They had dreamed of plans for the near future. His enthusiasm seemed genuine and Madeleine truly believed it, it had the power of a commitment in her heart. But soon afterwards, it became obvious that he would never make any room in his life for her, a fact that was perfectly rational in a world where even love interactions were subjected to professional standards. It was clear that the priorities were non-negotiable, and that he expected her to feel the same way. Madeleine could not hold it against him, it was somewhat silly of her, even childish, to want something else.

Each glass emptied made it easier to fill the next one, until the whole bottle was gone. But, rather than sleepy, Madeleine felt in a trance, a feeling that was familiar yet unknown. And in the mist of the trance the thought of that morning subtly insinuated into her mind. It had been transformed, however, by the darkness of the night into something quite somber.

It occurred to Madeleine that there was always a choice in life not to follow the due course, not to labor through time to reach on schedule the final destination. Why do not get off earlier, at a random station? Why wouldn’t she hop off the train right now? Madeleine reasoned that any station was just the same, just an early exit, to challenge the compulsion of reaching that final destination. Because the final destination with its darkness, which appeared sinisterly luring, was a place where the unsettling pain would be gone; it represented eternal peace sitting in the middle of the maelstrom toward which she was ultimately attacked.

It was not a conscious resolution that drove her back to the minibar, but the plea of ending her pain. In a way, she felt that for the first time in her life she was exercising her own will, rather than doing her duty. In the growing fogginess of her mind an almost funny thought emerged and made her smile: she could drink the entire stock of liquor and not worry about the cost and the embarrassment of presenting the expense listed in the hotel receipt to the administration for reimbursement. It would not be her problem anymore.

After several glasses of cognac she sat on the floor, with her head resting on the bed. A blues song was playing in her head, together with blurry snap shots of her childhood. But everything was surreal, and any recognisable image and sound was dissolving in a shapeless haze, until her consciousness dissolved too.