ROOM NO.20

                                          ROOM NO. 20

         “Here you go Sir.” She said handing him the key, her face lighting up with her beautiful wide smile. “It’s number twenty- down that way.” She said pointing to the direction he should take. “Your meal will be there in five.” she added sweetly to which he nodded walking out - as he was- of the messy office ; it didn’t compliment her, her softness, her beauty, her smile; it just wasn’t her.
         ‘Sir’ – he did ponder, a wan smile on as he headed down the wooden porch –that would have been a very appropriate title had he succeeded but he hadn’t and so it wouldn’t any time soon. Swinging his bag onto his left shoulder, he sighed. His eyes wondering onto the tall grass on the huge field across the road, he felt it again; felt it again for the millionth time today; despair, his heart suddenly felt heavier; he sighed again, this time deeper. High, high above the grass in the star filled sky a half moon shone; shone like it never would again, doing it with all the energy it could gather from the sun; it did it for him. Seventeen was the number on the door to his right; three more –he thought –and he’d have a place to contemplate his next move; it had been long thought but he liked to consider it not.

         In his bag was the only thing he had known how to do; his writing, which he liked to think-more than he had himself –had failed him. He had read a story about another writer who like himself had failed to get anyone to like his work; everyone to whom he presented it either termed it as far fetched or unbelievable which really meant the same. The writer had despaired and had tried to commit suicide but at that he had also failed; he was that big a failure. It had filled his heart with fear then -the story had-since he had already started meeting the same obstacles as the man in the story had; these had filled his heart with worry. To himself he had promised he’d work, work harder than he had been, write better and succeed but now, with a bag hanging from his left shoulder just like the man in the story, he knew what he had; that everyone was suicidal; it just took people different lengths of time to get there. He was there; most as anyone could. What had kept him going, what had kept him writing, the sole thing that had kept him postponing other things so he could write had all deserted him; faded actually in the hot sun as he had walked from one publishing house to the next and beaten off him completely by the wind on the long way to this motel; his hope had been. Now, it was all gone. Without it he knew not what else he could do. He had borrowed a pair of scissors which he thought if he couldn’t drive into his wrists he’d thrust into his throat; he wondered how hard that could be.
         The keys clicked as they gently hit the lock’s belly before clicking some more as he turned them in the hole. Retracting them from the lock, he turned the knob gently pushing the door open; it obliged. Looking back at the long grass-before disappearing into the room- he liked the sight: in the moonlight and the breeze the grass looked like a golden sea; he loved it. The moon shone brightly still, it was shining for him; brightly for his last.

                             ***************************
         The room was very small, was much cooler than the chilly outside, smelled of dust and was dimly lit; he didn’t mind though; he wasn’t here for comfort which he had never had in his life, he was here for one thing.
          The sole window before which an old TV set sat on a table was adjacent to the now closed door. The bed which was one of the three pieces of furniture in the room -the other being the stool and the table on which the TV sat- was covered with what in the dim light appeared to be a brown sheet. He walked round the bed to the stool’s side and sat on the bed, he was exhausted; it was hard- the bed was- he felt with his fingers but it would do.  When he finished with the scissors, no longer would his body need any comfort. It would hurt he knew but he cared not for the pain; not anymore anyway; he had felt too much of it as his heart got broken every now and then. This time, it’d just be his throat and break it he wouldn’t; he’d just slit it open.
         Earlier that week, on a bright sunny day as he walked the streets in his home town, he had looked up at the sky and had asked God to give him a sign as to whether he would succeed;
         “Hey Robert!” someone had called out to him. He had turned.
         And there the sign had been; as tall and as clear as it ever could be; a middle finger, courtesy of his former schoolmate Pete and his hand as he sped down the street in his hummer. That was the sign God had sent him; a middle finger – a tear had flowed. With that from God, guess was all the world could give him now was death; that he wasn’t willing to wait for any longer, he was tired. He was simply tired.
         Fumbling with his bag, he pulled out the long pair of scissors and laid his tired body on the bed. He felt choked. A tear flowed to his left ear; this he simply didn’t need. Angrily, he sat up wiped it with his black denim jacket then sighed; the scissors to his right.
         “Here’s your meal mister.” A bulky man in shorts and a colorful shirt said storming into the room, in his right hand a tray on which was laden a can of coke and sand witch . It startled him, although just a bit “I’m the proprietor.” the man announced; maybe that gave him the right to burst into the room. “Glad to have you here.” He added, placing the tray on the dusty stool before walking out; a look of disappointment on his face; what he had expected to walk in on unknown to the tenant.
         He was hungry, that he surely was, he having walked all day and having had nothing to eat. Now, very far from home, penniless and his spirit broken, he felt choked more than he felt hunger. The sandwich had in his left hand risen to his mouth but now, unable to decide what had started decomposing- whether the bread or the fillings –he put it back onto the tray, walked to the door locked it, then lay on the bed the soles of his worn shoes facing the TV screen.
         Having learnt as a child –under the tutorage of his now deceased father –to embrace his mistakes and failures, the urge to fling his bag towards the door was immediately culled. He lifted it from beside him, clutched it to his chest and closed his eyes embracing it. Embracing it wholly, embracing his mistakes. He would soon kill self he knew but why not think of what he might have done had he actually succeeded. Try he did, to think of the house he’d have bought, the girl he’d have married, the cars he’d have had but something wouldn’t let him think; think about hope for better things, the hope that had kept him at that table scribbling night and day for the past five years sometimes getting headaches so severe that they blurred his vision only for all that to come to naught. A voice; it wouldn’t let him think; it didn’t seem to want to.
         “We know you’re hurting, we understand, why don’t you just join us?” It asked incessantly. He opened his eyes. It asked still. He sat up.
It didn’t stop, it wouldn’t.
         “Who’s that?” he whispered, too petrified to get off the bed.
         “You’re sitting on us.” the voice replied followed by a long hollow silence; he didn’t understand. “Lie on the bed face down and you will see us.” The voice said. He hesitated for a period too long; all the while getting drenched in his perspiration. He wanted to get up and run but couldn’t, wanted to cry out for help but the strength to do so had deserted him; maybe it was also afraid. “Come on you were just about to commit suicide, weren’t you? What are you afraid of now?” The voice asked, mocked actually; it made him feel stupid. A smile managed to break the gloom on his fearful sweat drenched face. He had realized he was being stupid; the smile made him look sickly.
         Doing as directed, he saw them, saw them in a dimly lit emptiness; about eighteen men and a woman, a very beautiful woman. They were staring back; staring back at a potential recruit. In their environment, they looked comfortable; they didn’t seem to need, they were comfortable; no one normal ever was. He was afraid to ask who they were.
         “We’re people Robert, just like you. People who the world has treated unfairly.” It seemed to be true. “People who want to make the world by hurting it understand just how much it hurt us.” His kind of people he thought. But how did they get into the bed in the first place? A jilted wizard was involved but that they wouldn’t disclose, not yet. He’d understand when he did join them; if he did. “That we’ll tell you if you join us. Let’s punish the world together.” This the others echoed with their imploring eyes. They had to beg –really had to- for the last one to join he’d be the last if he agreed. This one they couldn’t just kill and let his blood onto the bed flow like the woman’s had some few months back; this one had to be begged. He was the seal to their invincibility.
         He didn’t need much cajoling, after all the world had hurt him, hadn’t it? Now he knew why the room more than its exterior was cold. It was full of souls, vengeful souls, regretful souls, cold souls, souls that only wanted one thing; revenge. Souls like his. He agreed.
         All he had to do they said was commit suicide; that much he had guessed. Whichever way he chose would do they had said; it’d get him there.
          It would only hurt for a second they had said, no more than one, then he’d join them. A sluggishly aimed pair of scissors headed towards the writer’s throat at a high speed just as bright light probably from a truck flooded the room through the crack beneath the door; it was light he wasn’t going to see again any time soon.
         Now, they were strong. Now the world would understand; it was their hope it would.
         
                                         ******************************
         The proprietor found the door open, no body, no bag, no blood, no scissors, no nothing; just his room as it had been and the sandwich untouched. They were that good. They knew he’d never tell, never tell that people disappeared in this motel; he feared having to close it down. They’d continue disappearing. In the motel accidents would happen, on the road people would perish in freak accidents but he’d never tell, never. This was the twentieth person to disappear in this room in six years but he’d never tell; he wasn’t that stupid.
         “Well I’ll be damned! He left!” he exclaimed, turning to the clueless truck driver feeling on his bare arm the room’s chill. “Here you can even keep an eye on your truck.” He added, pushing the door wider for the burly man.
         He got in, his gaze fixed on the short fat man. He nodded then slammed the door in his face; trying to look tough. The room was very cold. So cold that he could see his breath; he liked.
          Sighing, he walked to the stool, picked the sandwich and sniffed it.
“Who lets good food go to waste?” He wondered out loud before switching on the TV and sitting on the bed’s edge facing it.
         On the bright screen was a man sitting on a bed. Behind him, a man crept upon him a pair of scissors in hand; a bag hanging from his left shoulder. The soon to be victim he thought he knew, he was holding a sandwich in one hand and a can of coke in the other peering into something; as if trying to make it out. He felt the bed he sat on move. He screamed, too late.

                                     ****************************
         Her car had broken down a mile down the road; it had depressed her: and oh what a fine day to have forgotten her cell phone. She sighed. The drunken proprietor was nice to her, he ushered her into the chilly room; he was being too nice; as if he expected from her more than the money she had already given him. He should know her short skirts she only lifted for one person, the same person she let touch between her legs, the man she let poke her womanhood; her fiancé. But who would tell him?
         Inside the mattress he saw her; he knew her he told the others. He still thought she was beautiful; still wished she had been his. She would be his case just like the truck driver had been, they decided, but that was of course only if he wanted it to be; he did. She was Pete’s fiancée and for a moment he wondered what he’d do with her. Looking at the scissors still in his hand, he knew. She looked very tender, very tender indeed.
          She complained about the chill to the proprietor. He staggered off to go get an a.c. leaving her pacing the room, her arms crossed at her bosom.
         He liked how she looked- the proprietor did- that is to say he wanted her. She looked weak. Maybe he could force himself into her; he’d have to sober up a bit first. Almost at his office, he remembered which number that room was and swirled around. He wanted to run but the staggering wouldn’t let him.
         She was still pacing the room with an eye more critical than that of a smart mouse viewing a trap when the door slammed itself shut. She started; she didn’t understand how or why it had. She soon would.