Groupielivesmatter

Goop

I awoke this morning to the blurry view of a ceiling that was not my own. The delinquent beams of golden sun that poked their wandering light through minor imperfections in aged drapery painted the news of a new morning. The haze of sleep hung heavy in my mind still, making every thought nothing more than background noise, but it would become deciphered once the fog between my ears and behind my eyes began to finally dissipate. My body made the executive decision to begin the day before my mind could once again stifle the advances of time. I peeled the heavy down comforter and smooth linens from my skin and briefly mourned the loss of their embrace. Feet met carpet as my legs swung over the side of the bed. I appeared to be wearing nothing more than silken boxer shorts. My eyes stared blankly ahead, deciding the time had not yet come to focus on anything in particular, resulting in nothing more than a nondescript haze of dimly lit shapes around me. My thoughts began to become apparent, as if I were finally zeroing in on their frequency through thick static. My left hand began to grope the smooth surface of the table beside my bed, eventually finding a cigarette and delivering it to the dehydrated surface of my lips where it stuck and hung loosely. As my lighter sparked and smoke filled my throat, my mind, body, and senses finally found a commonground. The carpet beneath my feet was smooth and short, clean and economical. The dark wood paneling on the walls was stained with the same deep chestnut as the furniture around the room. The walls above the handrail were painted, or perhaps papered, with a shade of what must have once been off-white, but had developed warmth with age, giving off a vague nostalgia reminiscent of a grandmother’s kitchen first thing in the morning. I stood and pulled back the curtains covering the window, immediately flooding the room with blinding light. As my eyes began to adjust, I scanned the room for details that my mind had failed to retain of the previous day, or had it been longer? I walked a few short paces from the window to a desk, upon which was a notepad with the heading Bergenheim Luxury Hotel & Suites. The surface of the desk was covered with a glass pane, the majority sprinkled with remnants of various substances. Torn, crumpled, and otherwise discarded pieces of notepaper littered the floor. Most of the scraps contained nonsensical words, number sequences correlating to nothing, and bizarre scribbles and doodles. One had what appeared to be a portrait of Richard Nixon with massive eyes and lips that looked as if they could burst through the page and the words “FEAR MONGREL” scribbled over it. I crossed the room to the French doors that divided the suite and stepped into the sitting area, or at least what remained of it. The couch had been overturned and shredded to pieces, a new touch tacked on this time to an all too familiar scene. The powder blue wallpaper had been scorched, gouged, and scribbled upon with more queer images and meaningless characters, the phones had been violently ripped from the walls, leaving scars and tattered wires where the connection had once been, and empty liquor bottles were strewn about, some broken, some still full. I took in the scene from the doorway of the bedroom in the same detached but shocked way one takes in the scene of a horrible accident from a distance. After all, what was another hotel room? At least this time I had made it inside. Surely I’d be asked to answer for my crimes and the damages I had caused in my drug induced fugue, but worry evaded me. Now was not the time to panic, plus the “James Clover” that had reserved the room would cease to exist as soon as the doors of this hotel closed behind me. I heard a knock at the door. The sound froze me in place.