I am an Alienation Survivor !

Imagine your life a labyrinth of corridors and tunnels. Some with grey industrial carpet; some with tile that echoes ... Fluorescent tube lighting. Escalators. Stairwells. Elevators. Echoing caverns. You navigate these corridors all around the world. Announcements and murmurs. Pasajeros -- Lieber fluggast -- Attencion -- Nachster halt -- Please stand clear of the doors




Always a different room, usually the same garish decour. Lukewarm landscapes and pictures of coffee cups on the walls; spare beds for the ghosts beside you; surplus pillows you have to toss on the floor, as if the abundance of pillows made up for the essential lack of comfort.

There may be another human, across the way, in some unreachable space. If you want to reach him, send an email.







Imagine you cannot choose what you will eat for breakfast. (You are now in the situation of most of the people on Planet Earth, of course). Or, worse yet, imagine that you have to select your breakfast every morning from a chaotic dressed-up cafeteria. The breakfast buffet is full of slow geriatric beings that rumble and mumble through the aisles. To cruise through them and snatch a yoghurt and a museli you must be lithe, deft, quick. Break open mass-produced packets. You rise from the table each morning with a pile of plastic in your wake; empty containers; never quite nourished.



You can piss in a hole that thousands of others have pissed in; it all mingles together downstream; this is probably the least alienated any part of you ever gets. Look at yourself: your image caught in the prisms of a toilet room, a prisoner.

________________

Room 1913

dedicated to everyone who envies the business class

Finally got checked in the hotel, after the taxi driver drove me in circles. “Don’t you know where this place is?” I asked him. Of course he pretended not to, pretended to act confounded, his eyes glassy as he checked me out in the rearview mirror. He had one of those blue evil-eyes hanging from the mirror by a thin ribbon; it swayed as we turned. The night was humid; the air here is heavier than I’ve ever felt. The taxi driver peeled away from here in a ferverent cloud of dust & now I am looking out the window at the lights in the parking lot, wondering about all the other fares he will pick up tonight, all the other hotels and buildings they will go to. There is a musty smell here, peculiar; my eyes look hollow in the gilded mirror; I am going to collapse upon the bed now for I am too tired to really write tonight.

*

Woke when the sun slanted straight in from the dingy drapes, piercing my eyes. This room looks even worse when illuminated... like it was designed to be golden, but beige has taken over instead, like a gradual mold. I was on the way to the breakfast buffet and the elevator stopped just short of the floor. It was only a few inches that I had to step up, but I’ve never seen an elevator do that, you know? You would think the whole thing should be mechanically timed and measured. Well, the lady who was welcoming the diners to the breakfast room flashed me a big smile and offered me a newspaper: with that and a cup of coffee, the world seems bearable for another day.

*

Tried to nap, agitated, the pillow just the wrong size. I threw it across the room. They are doing construction on the other wing, something which requires a lot of pounding. The workers were listening to loud cumbia. I tossed and turned over the rhythms; I started to dream of a waving field of wheat when a new song began, reggaeton thumping through the blue air.
In an attempt to rouse myself, I tried to go through my yoga routine, opening ill-used muscles. From my position on the carpet I could see under the bed and there was a strip of shriveled bacon lying there. I was caught between wanting to throw it away and not wanting to touch it. Finally I fished it out, covered in dust, and then washed my hands with the hotel soap. It smelled like artificial lemons and burned my skin slightly. You know what else burns? The numbers on this digital clock. They are red and hot throughout the whole night.

*

I am sure the woman in the next room over is faking an orgasm. No woman ever really screams like that. She gets an A+ for theatrics, but can that really turn a man on? If I was a man I would have to burst out laughing. He has been going a long time. I hope I do not see them at the breakfast buffet. I do not want to know if he takes ham and beans or pastries for breakfast.

*

The nice breakfast lady, the redhead who checked off my room number every morning, is gone. In her place is this stern creature. She looks down her nose at the clipboard and then points you to one of the two breakfast halls. Yesterday she pointed me to the “Executive Breakfast” where they had quark with fresh berries and two kinds of smoked salmon and waffles with real maple syrup. Today she pointed me to the room with the folding chairs and the lifeless cornflakes. Why? I’m the same person as I was yesterday. I tried to ask her but she doesn’t understand my attempts at the local language.
This breakfast buffet is a deception anyway. It serves up plates of deception by the hundreds. It looks like there is so much stuff, and people mull around with plates heaping with cold cod on top of brie on top of potato salad on top of pain au chocolat on top of miscellaneous Germanic cold cuts... but you know what, none of it is actually good. The pate is dry and the papayas are from yesterday and turning brown and the pastry is all made from margarine with artifical butter flavouring. So you end up eating the same thing every day, which is a bit of bread with honey and white cheese, which is pretty much the same thing you eat for lunch and dinner inside your hotel room: surrounded with the illusion of choice, but without any choice at all.
And you know what else: the elevator clunked to a stop a foot from the door today. The cement of the shaft was exposed. Sure, I can step up, but what if I was handicapped or old or something? It could be quite difficult.

*

When I went downstairs this afternoon to get a new keycard (mine of course flashes red when I try to open the door) the receptionist was really perturbed about something. I could only watch her hands flicker as she talked. In the end I had to go outside for a walk. The sidewalk here is endless; one day I long to walk it until I discover an end. I keep hoping to see a coyote or a bird or a stray cat: but nothing.
I came back and the maid had been there. She used some kind of solvent that stings the eyes. I opened the window and the door to try and air it out... but then the music from the nearby strip club filtered in. I don’t know how they can call this place a four-star hotel. A broken constellation: one of the stars has its arms in a sling, one of the stars tried to go supernova but couldn’t quite make it, one of the stars was depending on little children to wonder what it was and when they stopped wondering she died of heartbreak. The last of the stars is actually dead, burned out thousands of years ago, but the light from it is still traveling towards us--

*

Came back today and she had rearranged all my things, again, all my razors and toothbrush in a plastic cup; all my books in a row. What if I like them scattered? They had also installed a new flat-screen TV to replace the old boxy one. The TV was on, and against a background of blue waves, little white script read, Welcome Guest in Room 1913. Today our special in the Hotel Restaurant is Veal Escalope with rice pilaf. A glass of sherry and a carnation for the ladies! Featuring the music of Memory Duo. It took me five minutes to find the button to shut it off; it did not want to be shut off.
I think the solvent is starting to affect me. I find myself with a headache every time I come back into my room, a kind of spinning headache that starts off slow and works its way back into my head. At least I’m not as bad off as the guy in the next room. He was harrumphing and spitting all night long, with a hoarse cough, the sickly sounds of humanity compressed into one being and one long night.

*

The Hotel Voice is talking to me from every different angle. On the screen of the TV the little letters say We invite you for a relaxing stay at our hotels around the world. On the nightstand Chambermaid Miss Maldita is the person in charge of the lay out and care of your room. On the table We recommend our Specialties and Typical Food of the Country. On the writing desk Revive Yourself! Center of Beauty and Thallasotherapy Spa Invites You... In the bathroom Missing Something? Call the Front Desk for anything you might need. It keeps talking and talking and I notice the logo of the hotel is subtly embroidered in white threads upon my pillowcase, easing its voice closer to my ears and my dreams.


*

When I woke up I tried to get online, but the wifi wasn’t free anymore. They had installed some kind of system which costs 17 euros for 24 hours, and it takes about twelve different screens before you can enter. You have to make up a password and security questions and pick an image to be your signal key and then tell them about your mother’s maiden name your pet dog your date of birth your secret lover your enemy’s middle name where you went to high school when you lost your virginity your one true wish for the world. After all that you enter your credit card details and then it says Final Processing Error -- Please try again later or email us at helpdesk@access.com for technical support. Of course, because you cannot get online you cannot email your mother, your pet dog, your secret lover, your enemy, or the help desk; you cannot email anyone.
I spent a long time then staring at the painting. It is a painting of some kind of square building, some elaborate edifice that is basically square, elaborations on a square, as if the elaborations made it more than a square, which they do not. There are a lot of ancient laborers sprawled around the bottom of it, wearing funny hats. One of them is pointing at another man’s foot. Also there are some horse-drawn carriages. I spent some time wondering why someone painted this scene, what story they were trying to tell, and why someone in the hotel wanted to put this on the walls of the rooms. Then I looked out the window again. It seemed like the trees were waving in the wind, but of course I could not feel any wind in here.

*

Yesterday the breakfast buffet was full of Russians on a package tour. No tourists ever really come here since there is nothing to do here, except for the Russians who maybe get sold on it because it seems better than whatever cold concrete-block-city they are from, but anyway, today the buffet was half-filled with reptiles. They oozed slowly from table to table in subtle competition for the choicest bits, as if there wasn’t going to be enough, as if tomorrow they would wake up and the doors would be locked, as if tomorrow they would bust into the buffet and the little serving trays would be filled with ashes.
This elevator is getting worse. I had to make a wild acrobatic jump to escape it, out into the catastrophic writhing floral carpet of the corridor, because the elevator stopped halfway short of the portal: and then as I was pondering what to do it started moving again. In any other country the inspectors would get them for having such a dangerous elevator. You may ask why I do not take the stairs. I had intended to leave via the stairs one time, began dancing down them, and came to a sign that said UWAZA / ATTENZIONE / PELIGROSO / ACHTUNG! NUR BRANDFALL. I was dubious but I kept descending, down where there was only one flourescent bulb flickering, down where there were no doors to floors any more but just concrete steps-- and then the door at the bottom was chained shut. I had to climb all the way back out again, as far up as the ninth floor, and catch the elevator from there.

*

It is the elevator that keeps me up all night, elevating heavy people up and dropping them down. You can hear the gears working in the shaft, they whine, and then BOOM! -- the whole thing thuds and jerks to a halt. It sounds like missiles going off -- whizzing through the air -- suspense -- and then landing. Yes, there is a war in the inner workings of the hotel. I would request a room farther from the elevators, but the receptionist has been giving me the evil eye, and besides there would just be some other thing going on with that room, there is always some other thing.
I am a bit scared to leave, too, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to get back in. The lock hasn’t been green lately, it flashes orange now, and waits a second before the metallic click that signals permission to enter. Last time it went through a fluorescent rainbow and started to shimmer. There is a rainbow inside that lock waiting to get out; it doesn’t want to be just red or green any more: which is fine for it, but difficult for me.
The window has me captivated. I pull it open all the way and soak my skin in the air. I watch the pigeons alight on the eaves. I look at the stringy trees and the dusty cars and the lone people lumbering here and there. Mostly I look at the horizon; long to touch it.
My body is halfway out the portal when a loud pounding freezes me. The door clicks and swings open. Two mustached men in uniform are there, as well as the receptionist in her suit and her pearl earrings. She is shaking her head and the men are beckoning me forth. They cross their arms over their chest and speak in a strange language. I decide I should put on my shoes and one of them takes my arm like a brusque grandfather. We take the stairs, down down down, and then the receptionist opens the locked door at the bottom of the stairwell with her ring of keys. They put me in their police car like a little package on the car seat and she is still shaking her head in the parking lot as we drive off.
The men chariot me through the traffic into a drab building and bring me into a room cluttered with papers. One of them sits down at a computer and begins to type. I sit on a hard chair and look at nothing. Then a woman clicks in. She brings me a paper and says, “You have to sign this, and then you can go.”
“What does it say?” I ask, glancing at the foreign script.
“It is a denouncement, stating that you were evicted from the hotel for failure to pay the facture, the bill, but that you are aware of this bill and agree to pay it in the future.” She shrugged. “It says that you have been warned and failure to pay within 60 days will result in further legal action.”
“Oh.” There is a clock on the wall that is ticking. I pick up a pen and scrawl my name on the black line.
“This is your copy,” she says, tearing off the bottom copy and handing it to me. I fold it and stuff it in my pocket. The man is still typing at his computer and the clock is still ticking.
“So, you are free to go,” she says again. I stand up, push my chair under the desk, and walk towards the door.
“What about my things?” I turn to the woman. “All my things are in the hotel.”
“I am sure the hotel staff would give them to you, if you need them.”
I am not sure of this and decide I do not need them, do not need anything, and step outside. It has grown into an amazingly cobalt evening while I was away and the trees are waving. There is no sidewalk because it has ended, but I think I can find my way.



-- Torremolinos, Spain / March 2008
with thanks to Ettore Minguzzi, who gave me the ending