I woke up.
The reddish light that softly danced into my room had stroke
my face once more. It was late, as usual, two thirty in the morning and there
was I, alone in that room at the eighth floor, in that room, a paradise of my
own.
This is rude indeed, let me start again; let me start by
telling you my name. I am John Taylor
Owen and I am a writer of some sort. That night, the night I spent alone in the
darkness was my twentieth night stranded in that hotel amidst the Caribbean on
an island claimed to be a happy one.
Aruba was its name and I can remember but half the things
that happened to me there. The sweet liquors that place offers are unbelievable
and though I have had some drinking problems I can say that on that particular
occasion I was fine.
But fine does not mean inspired nor entertained. At first
the sun seems to be nice and the waves breaking far ahead are but treasures
waiting to be discovered but then as it is the night falls again and the island
that echoed times of incredible adventures and discoveries turned into a bleak
void of neon lights and weird sounds of music.
I could not concentrate and little by little the enchantments
of the happy island consumed me, my characters left me there all by myself as
If I was the sole survivor of a terrible shipwreck. Stories ran away from me,
words hidden under the sheets and answers at the bottom of red rum bottles.
It was a disaster.
Or else that is what I recall.
But that night…
The twentieth night of my gloomy enterprise something
happened. The reddish light stroke my face and awaken me in the middle of yet
another disturbing night. There I was,
as I told you, alone covered in clean white sheets, surrounded by empty bottles
of red rum and looking straight towards the curtains that let me sleep not.
There I was at the eighth floor in that paradise of my own.
That night something strange happened. An amount of energy
unknown to my consciousness took over me. Somehow I felt I had to leave the
room not caring about the music or anything at all and just start looking for
those characters that abandoned me.
Funny, don’t you think?
Twenty nights it took me to stand up wear shorts and a
spotless shirt .
Twenty entire moons to open that door at night and try to
find what awaited me long, long and far form the gate of that paradise of my
own.
And so I did.
I walked out.
And I walked towards the elevators glancing carefully at the
locked doors to my right and to my left as well.
I pressed the button and the roaring engine of that soulless
machine – the elevator – broke the ghastly silence that that hallway withheld.
The doors opened.
I had my little note pad and my pen too.
“Lobby” – I pushed.
The elevator started to go down.
I waited for nothing more than another empty hallway and
maybe a casual security guard doing his normal night rounds. I knew I was going
to be completely alone bothered only by the distant beat of that
incomprehensible modern-ish music.
I needed to find that sparkle of insight. That explosion of
inspiration, that wild adventure that was supposed to lead me towards the ideas
that I had long forgotten.
But I was wrong.
The elevator stopped at floor six.
“Could that be possible?” I ask my self in silence.
The gates opened and a woman came in with her child too, a
little boy in stroller.
I knew that woman. It was Mrs. McAndrew and the boy was her
son. She was a very attractive woman whom I have stumbled upon a few times on
my way to the pool. I always thought that she was lucky for having such a nice
kid and husband who cared for her. I often thought of the chances I had to
eventually having a family like hers.
I thought I knew that woman.
She came in the elevator without making one noise.
Not “hello”
Not “Good morning”
Nothing.
And a chill went upwards disrupting every single vertebra in
my spine.
Something had to be awfully wrong and me being a fiction
writer, I think I just maximized the whole event.
There were we.
Standing.
Being guided to oblivion by that roaring machine.
Her eyes, I will never forget those brown deep eyes. She was
just starring into eternity not even blinking – I swear -.
And her boy was calmed and still.
It was silent,
It was ghoulish.
What on earth could have happened to that woman of the sixth
floor?
Why would she be so terribly deepened in her own disgraces?
Her eyes, her deep brown eyes talked to me a lot more than
anyone in those twenty moons. She was there at the elevator but at the same
time her mind soared far away in a land of blood and pain, I could see that
clearly.
And her boy, her boy was calmed.
He was clamed and still.
I started sweating.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to rescue her but
something inside me told me that she needed no rescuer that she needed to be
interrupted not.
And so… I kept silence.
The elevator then stopped.
But we were not at the lobby yet.
It stopped at the first floor.
“Another weary soul?”- I asked my self
But there was no one there.
Not one person to be reckoned.
The doors.
The hall.
And nothing more.
It then happened.
Mrs. McAndrew pushed the stroller gently towards the hall.
She didn’t even saw her kid, she just pushed it away from
her as if she was letting go of some terrible mistake, just as if she was
freeing herself from a pair of morbid shackles.
Her eyes
Her deep brown eyes,
The baby moved towards the infinite void of doors and rough
carpet.
The baby had no idea of what had happened.
Neither did I
But the elevator’s doors were shut once again.
And the roaring heart of the machine was too, beating – once
again -.
Mrs. McAndrew had taken that path.
I saw it. I saw it clearly. A woman escaping from reality,
leaving everything that she had loved amidst the fog of memories.
I wont lie to you.
I wouldn’t
I was scared.
I was terrified for I didn’t know what to do next.
But I will tell you, and I hope you don’t hold any grudges
against me.
The elevator stopped once more.
The gates… they opened.
It was the Lobby, my intended destination.
Mrs. McAndrew walked towards the light and did not stop
until I couldn’t see her anymore.
She just walked away.
And I…
I saw the board full of numbers and saw many possibilities
but my body forced me to do the one thing
that I feared the most.
I pressed the button “8”.
I opened the door – once more -.
I covered my self in those clean white sheets and let the
reddish light in.
It was enough adventure for one night.
I went back to sleep at that room at the eighth floor.
I went back to sleep in that paradise of my own.
