cog (telephone): Help me out here, come on, give me something, a floor, or even
ache1 (telephone): It’s not, just,
surprise me.
Pause
ache1 (telephone): Again.
and sits upon the bed, waiting on the duty porter to
arrive and help ferry those few things in their two carrier bags to the next
room randomly selected from those currently available by the duty receptionist,
the logistics of which movement were hardly complex, owning as she did only her
E.T. doll, always first and foremost, plus the few new clothes, and a small
selection of toiletries which, given their cost, she would never have
considered purchasing for anyone, let alone herself.
Every new move an attempt to prevent each room from
becoming her own, even for that short time of its occupation, a subconscious
refusal to ever again become too attached to anything; too, an effort to perhaps
prolong the novelty of her situation, and in so doing stave off that sense of
this being her life for how much of the future she dare not even begin to
imagine.
There is no question of security, already understanding
deleted name will always know exactly
where she is, and that on his dollar she would never be safer, though she does
wonder if he realises with each move the formality of her relationship with the
cogs is breaking down, that formality borne of ignorance, hypotheses,
supposition, and conjecture, their indulging her every caprice in recognition not
of her own importance, but that of her sponsor.
Again she reminds herself she is no longer not even
consciously not remembering.
A quick knock at the door, and the hotel’s only
resident without a suitcase is once more on the move, minutes later to welcome the
new room’s negligible variant geography, its light, and accumulant smell.
And then, having settled in, clothes hung upon their
hangers, toiletries distributed throughout the bathroom, she sits again upon
the bed and sits, almost as if she knows, almost as if she is already waiting.
And then, the telephone.
Eventually, the telephone.
Finally, the telephone.
The telephone.
