Mrs. McAndrew and her son

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.