April 3, after midnight
Long hallways led the way. I pushed open sets of fire doors and moved from modern to Victorian and back again. The staircases, antique with white scalloped edges, grandly led to a string quartet on one level and to darkness on another.
I marched with purpose, as if desperately seeking someone or something. Alone as I climbed from one flight to the next, followed one sign to another. Only to find myself back to where I started. A complete loop. I turned around in frustration and had another shot at my search for nothing in particular.
Narrow bamboo steps led to an open platform. Books and magazines left behind on a few coffee tables. Drapes drawn in all of the rooms overlooking this plateau. Other than the rowdy crowds closed into the restaurants and the elegant couples enjoying classical music, the rest of the hotel remained masked in silence. It was as if I was the only person who dared to explore anything above the ground floor.
I felt lost wandering those halls. I saw no one except my own reflection from time to time in a mirror that interrupted the sparseness of the white walls. The blue-gray carpet absorbed even the slightest sound of my footsteps.
An end table placed squarely against a wall—empty but for plastic fruit and two cocktail glasses left behind. By whom? Those revelers who congregated in one of the smoky bars or by Destiny's crowd? Silence. The air conditioners softly whirring. A door slamming now and again. Light footsteps scurrying. Then, nothing.
In a sudden panic, I turned and ran. I was afraid. I pushed open one fire door, then turned a corner. The wrong way. I couldn't be lost. No, I was just dazed. A sign for the elevator. A beacon of light. My feet pounded over the glass bridge leading to the atrium. I shuddered, my fear of heights taking over. And then I found safety as my fingers landed on the right button, whisking me down to the fourth floor.
I was tired. Exhausted wouldn't have been an exaggeration. But in spite of the densely soft down comforter and six feather pillows, I couldn't lay my soul to rest.
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