exiles — [1] an old woman enters a hotel room…
Long after the singularity, living deep inside the change. Predictably nobody noticed. Mostly the change was unnoticed…
Either way we arrived the early evening, booked into the hotel. Left the luggage in the room, and went down to the mezzanie restaurant and ate a last meal, I drank some white wine. [edit] [edit] [edit]
The front door, is covered in a matte finish pale wood eneer, it opens into a hallway of about 4 metres by 1.5 metres, on the left is a small unused kitchen, a minbar with in a pale wood casing and shelves with some glasses and cups. On the right a wooden wall with a magazine and bookrack, shoe rack and luggage store. At the end of the kitchen is the bathroom and shower. The glass wall turns opaque when you enter the bathroom. The room itself is about 8 metres by 8 metres. The floor is covered in machined wood with oak veneer. The walls are covered in a grey green grass patterned paper. A pale wood picture rail and band runs around the room at about 2.5 metres above the floor. A few abstract pictures are standing on the band. There is an inscription in hand written Kanji script, in a nice hand, in pale grey. I looked at it and wondered why I could not decipher it. A magical inscription perhaps. There is a table and a closet standing against the wall, a luggage rack as well. All in the same pale wood colour, varnished in a gloss finish. There is a grey anglepoise lamp with brass springs and bolts, on the table. A power strip with plugs and USB and USB/C power outlets. There is a large mirror with bevelled glass and orange surround placed on the wall above above above the desk.[edit] I remember studying my face in the mirror but have no idea how this was possible. It’s a very nice mirror, I think, but how can I have looked at myself in the mirror ? Some mirrors reflect a cruel and dangerous image, he said, looking at his wet face in the the reflection. Under the desk a solid looking grey plastic wastepaper basket. Facing me, almost the entire external wall is taken up by the clear glass window, it faces south-west, the lower half has a blind that rises from the floor to about a metre, the top half by another matching charcoal blind. The hotel is located in the west side of the city, it’s 125 to 150 metres or more in height, we are on the twentieth floor. The window looks out over the city. Most of the buildings are lower than this. Photons from the city lights illuminate the ceiling of the bedroom. On the other side of the room a large double bed, covered with a green, white and black duvet, in a restful pattern that it seems wrong to describe like the headboard itself which is I think grey or perhaps brown. With matching bedside cabinets or tables. Sealed bottles of water on the top. They both have drawers and reading lamps. Our phones are plugged into white cables, ear pieces charging beside them. It’s the last hotel room we will ever be in.
{[open] [It’s a simple story really, he had been her, she had been his, she had had him for decades, they decided to go together, they had gone out together, they had gone to bed together, for longer than you have been alive, they had been together a, all this happened tomorrow. for her another was impossible, she simply had not had for anyone else, that the other ones had died, so he had become her other, he had still not had anyone else no other, that had not mattered to him, so they had remained, it did them good, it did them no good. as the terminal illness developed, the other wondered if she could live without him, too old she thought, he has not yet ceased to be, her is her, he is with her, she is with him, she is him, perhaps others would want something more, perhaps others have times for her and him, they don’t, it is quite this.
she listens and regrets, wonders how it would have been if he hadn’t been the one, lonely she thinks, and what if there had been another? would he be hers again when they reincarnated? she smiles at his face i still have that thought about reincarnation she thinks. would she be his if he were to ask again she wonders, would they be together again if her were to pull her backwards again, would everything she wonders begin again just again, probably he says, i hurt, i’m sorry, one of them could have vanished been sacrificed exiled fallen been killed, a simple story, couldn’t it have been simpler still, still simpler? A love story she knows. ] [Close]}
His breathing is a little laboured. His lungs do not work properly any longer. The painkillers are wearing off. I’m sorry he says from the bed. I never expected it to end like this. It’s all right. I let the sentences with there intense meanings, and crucially true cross the room. I;m sorry, he says again, I wish we could have lived differently, more banally, ordinary. I think he was hallucinating. We couldn’t. I culdn’t, you couldn’t, I said to him, holding his hand now. The universe allowed us to have children, grand children, friends, love. He still looked grey, colour would never return to his terminally ill face. It’s been a good life. Better than I deserved or could even imagine having. I regret nothing. I told him. He was feeling warm under my fingers. I have been happier than I could have imagined when we first met. He says. So we are sitting in the hotel room, saying our goodbyes. I took off my clothes, closed the blinds put on a teeshirt. I put the drugs in their aluminium case, on the side table… we were both about, actually, no our age doesn’t matter, suffice it to say we were both old old older than anyone. Descartes wold have been proud. Our children were not young anymore. I put the endnotes, the letters on the table. It hurts, he said. I know. I lay down on the bed and held him. The painkillers were completely worn off. I injected him and then a few minutes later myself. It takes about 15 minutes to lose consciousness and die. I wrapped myself around his old and lovely body. That’s so nice, he said. It’s been lovely. It has, I told him. Amused at how romantic we sound. He died in my arms I could feel him stop and then felt myself stop me. It was selfish I know to die in the hotel. Two old old people unable to imagine living without the other. [edit]
