It came to me that I
And in acknowledgment of this you’re being handsomely
I was convinced that finally I had received the opportunity to have the sort of
find a way
She said We knew it just as soon
Indeed as we approached the station as the distance from the swarm increased as light accumulated bit by bit around the car as we got closer to the place for pulling over at the station taking up the empty seat beside me in the car I started to imagine him for whom I would be searching sitting there when we would all be riding back to the estate the four of us together in the car.
We just can’t tell you how much we
However when I got on board that train I was reminded of a pairing of environments
two worlds that must remain apart
a powerful relationship
He said It’s true. He said You really are.
blue skies
green rolling hills
a glittering wavy line across the broad horizon.
She said She knows what she is.
White puffy clouds above
bright flashing colors down below.
When I arrived at that hotel the feeling that I had was even more unsettling. Jesus God what am I doing here I asked myself. That night I tried to call them but they did not answer it.
They did not ever answer any of my calls again.
Although the guidebook clearly noted quite a few
(Successive Nights: N) (Restaurant: N) (Bar: N)
potential inconveniences
before arriving
Know what I mean?
I thoroughly anticipated seeing people in the elevator
hallways
going in
out
waiters maybe maids at least
not only fleeting shadows
flashes
Man 1
2
I pictured couples meeting talking waiting (Smoking: Y) reclining in the (Lobby Seating: N).
It’s true. The lobby wasn’t much. No telephones no cubbyholes no wingback chairs.
I’ll try to trace this back to where it started from again.
The night we met I did not stay the night. They had me driven home by taxicab. As we progressed along the rural roads the city glowing up ahead I watched a gently broken playback of the night. When I awakened due to our arrival at my building I remember looking at the rearview mirror for the taxi driver’s eyes. I have no memory of the taxi driver’s eyes. It was as if the taxi driver had no face.
I fully wanted to expect that on the following Friday I would turn around at work to see them sitting there again. But when that Friday came they were not there.
BETWEEN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS I frequently discovered I had slipped into a halfway dreaming state in which I walked inside a tunnel. I would stop hold up a candle to the tunnel walls as if in search of something on or in the walls.
You see the night we met they took me back to their estate. To our place as he called it. Then Our generous conspicuously simple main roof used as dominating background to a sequence of assorted minor themes. I freshened up went down the STAIRS turned left passed three closed doors. They got up from their heavy leather chairs as soon as I appeared within the doorway to the STUDY. On the wall above the fireplace above a little lacquered box that sat off center on the mantel near an oval mirror on a pewter stand there hung a photographically realistic painting of a house. As viewed through open gates it was a small but sumptuous symmetrically arranged stone manor with a front façade encrusted with carved flowers complemented by stone pots that lined the bottom edge containing living flowers of the same variety as the carved ones.
That’s another one of his he said.
A black front door. Bright doorknob. Knocker. Disc shaped window up above the knocker. Those same flowers set like handprints in the glass.
Then two weeks later when I turned around at work to see them in their usual spot I felt that something I had been so desperate for in order to survive had been administered to my soul. I also felt that I had known that this would be the night although this sense of knowing did not lessen my relief at seeing them. That night (Night Two) my shift completed we went back to their estate. When we arrived they led me to the DRAWING ROOM where following champagne with several chunks of chocolate almond bark the invitation came to stay the night. Although at first I hesitated
Don’t do anything to show premeditation.
I accepted. When they led me up to where the bedrooms were she opened up the door into the pretty lemon sitting room connected to a bathroom. She said Since you are familiar with it you can stay in here. She opened up another door to show me that connected to the sitting room there was a pale orange rose pink bedroom that I had not seen the last time. She said You’ll find everything you need in there. So after freshening up I joined them briefly in the STUDY. Next we went to the VERANDAH where he pointed to a padded chair said Please. She said Sit down. He said I’ll get some wine. She said she had a story to tell me.
After that I did not see them for three weeks.
BETWEEN THE WEEKS my sleeping went uninterrupted although in the dreamlike spaces of my waking life when I was not examining the tunnel with the candle I began to see collected pictures fused together into overlays that covered up the real life version of the world. Blank surfaces were most susceptible. Some not blank surfaces turned blank when I had looked at them which made them ready to be filled with pictures. IN THESE WEEKS my sleep began to change as well. Although as soon as I had met them all my sleeping troubles disappeared
no waking walking to that photograph at which I listened for the wheezing coughing sighing trapped behind the glass
I here began to find that in the morning I would wake up crying as though having suddenly recalled a tragedy that seamless sleep had temporarily screened out. In tears my body trembling in my bed I looked around the room. Upon the surfaces the objects all the fabrics even on the walls I made out traces of a presence. None of the details. Just the loss.
INSIDE OF THOSE THREE WEEKS I had decided that if given the chance to do it I would stay the weekend although so as not to give the wrong impression
Do not let them think you’re overeager.
So I told myself that I would not say yes immediately. The night they showed up in their usual spot my heart skipped beats inside my body that was strangely enough relaxed. I felt like lying down. I also had a boundless energy to be expended. When my shift was done we left together. We were getting in the car when she requested that I stay the weekend. How she asked it sealed my certainty about the wisdom in accepting. Doubtless I was entering into something that had weathered generations. Stabilized by rules of etiquette refined by deep felt understandings of propriety of decency of wholesomeness this shape was fixed then fortified against the changing times by surface over surface of the way that things had always been laid down in alternation with the way that things should always be. He never joined us in the conversation about the weekend but as soon as I accepted he said Great. They drove me to my building waiting in the car while I went in to gather everything that I would need from my apartment.
It was very late when I awakened when we turned onto the gravel road on their estate. We all went straight upstairs. This room was different from the last room. This new room was situated farther down the hall beyond a little antique bookcase then around the corner where beside the door there was an antique lyre back chair that clearly was not meant for sitting on. I went to bed immediately. My sleeping was not interrupted. Following that I did not see them for a month.