Shaped To Speak

I remember checking in at the hotel that night vividly - it's etched into my mind forever - and how instantly run down and dilapidated the place struck me as being. The woman behind reception was lazily flicking through a magazine, and her dull eyes drifted up vacantly towards me as I wandered in. Her face was gaunt and frail, her sallow skin wrapped tightly around a long skull from which disjointed, yellow teeth protruded at awkward angles. The check-in process was brief and awkward. The only moment of relief during the near-silent exchange of forms and card details arrived in the form of a hopelessly inebriated, wiry old man who managed to stagger directly into me. It was a futile attempt to cross the reception area that culminated in his upending a near-full pint glass of some foul-smelling ale in spectacular fashion over my suit.

Immediately, lengthy, highly emotional and slurred apologies were forthcoming, accompanied by much grasping of my hand and imploring of forgiveness. Obtaining my room key from the clearly amused receptionist, I gently extracted myself from the man's grip, mumbled dismissively about accidents happening, and made hastily for the elevator.

My mood continued its steady downward spiral when, upon entering my room, a rancid waft of acrid staleness overpowered my senses. Deciding against suffering through another stilted conversation at reception for the sake of complaining, I hurriedly cracked open several windows, threw on a new shirt, and made my way back downstairs and out again to my car. My intention was to drive to a restaurant or bar to wait for a sufficient time, until the smell had dispersed.

I was sitting, huddled up, gloomily contemplating my potential limbo destination, when a sharp rap on my car window caused me to jerk upright. Twisting round, I saw the outline of a thin face peering inside, and a muffled voice drifting through the glass. I hesitantly wound down the window to respond, and felt a rush of hot panic at the sight of the shape of perhaps five or more bodies moving in the near background. My mouth shaped to speak, my hand again clasped the window handle, and a still pool of water collected in each of my eyes, beginning in the centre of my pupils and spreading over my corneas to form a dark, blinding membrane.

My eyes reopened, and I had the sensation of standing, but it wasn't natural. I have no frame of reference to describe what seemed to be a form of suspension. At first my head felt extremely heavy, and my vision was badly blurred. Perhaps that isn't the best way to describe it - my eyes seemed functional but what they were absorbing was a grainy, congealed mass. This mass was blinking sporadically and manifesting itself in a variety of nondescript colours, a frequent pulse of organic material in gloomy shades, vibrating on a conscious level around me. Immense material forms of matter rolled, sheet-like, over one another, intertwining and weaving, tumbling off into the perceivable distance. These were continually replaced by new waves, swelling to constant crescendos before again dispersing. And then - in an instant, and a moment that will be forever seared into my retinas, this fluctuating canvas skewered wildly and became briefly a cornucopia of shattered templates. It tumbled, crashing and collapsing all around me, but all the time straining furiously to regain substance.

And then it was still. A calm, clear amber light washed over me and I could see the sky above, but it wasn't the sky as I know it. It was beautiful beyond expression. It stretched on forever, a monumental, sprawling canopy of radiant white. Three enormous black birds circled overhead, their colossal wingspans blotting out vast fragments of the backdrop, and it seemed with every heartbeat their presence veered between directly above to extremely distant. I felt an inescapable sadness staring at them, such a horrendous, bleak, gut-wrenching despondency as is almost impossible to relate, but I wish so dearly that I could. It was as if, were I to really understand what I felt then, I would know what I was doing, and what I was always doing, and I wouldn't have to worry about any of these other trivial things. I would always have had that sorrow inside me, resonating in my core, confirming me, even if just for that time.

My head snapped upright in my car seat. As my senses gathered, I thought for a split second I saw a hand caress the window of the vehicle, just to the extremes of my vision. A surge of wild panic coursed through me, and for a few minutes I sat in an uncontrollable frenzy, desperately hyperventilating, writhing in my seat and racking my head in my hands.

The receptionist glanced distractedly up at me as I trudged back through the rotten lobby. She handed me the check-in forms half-heartedly. On cue the drunk man careered into the scene, but this time I pivoted at the vital moment to allow him leeway to crash past whilst maintaining his precarious grasp on his drink.

Back inside the semi-darkness of my room I sat perched on the edge of my bed, balancing a small mirror on my lap and carefully peeling the thin film from my eyes.