Hotel (smoke long version)

An attempt at smoke long fiction, or flash fiction if you like! Originally this was a spoken word piece which got scrapped, but I couldn't abandon it!

Hotel (smoke-long version)

 

On the edge of an ugly city I slap the last licks of paint on a room that has eyes in its walls. I have seen many come and go here, all with stories to tell. Some stick in the throat longer than others, some won’t ever leave you alone. An old man, with creases in the corners of his eyes, and down his trousers. His blushing bride of fifty three years, tweed skirt, tired smile, just came to whisper their memoirs. The bare backs of men with their secrets, cash on the side for red shoes and rent, flaunting her rouge and her tempestuous glances. A band of boys, sharp suits and agendas, exchange in foreign tones, their cases. One last hit before home, to the unknowing and the gracious. The last words of a man, spat to the wall, on the brink of a private disaster. A note left to a wife working three jobs, to bring him home safely to see her. Shutters, thrown out to the Spring, flooded the room with pollen and nicotine, and curtains were closed to the dank days of December, jaded and old and remembered. A young girl nervous and new, her boy of short days, expectant and keen, hiding his smile with honest eyes and an obvious aim to seduce her. Miss Polly, pregnant with child, and her officer, hiding from the war, dodging Roosevelt’s questions. Empty days, when only the daylight came and went, a tight month for Mr Montague, a tight year for King and country. A couple, one desperate, one spent, one last evening to wrangle with questions and the sugar sweet pill of deception. A gentleman, eager to please her, though she's gone since last year's October, just a year since she ended their life, he raised a glass to his wife. On the edge of this ugly old city, I have slapped the last licks of paint on a room with eyes in its walls, and I have made a tapestry of stories, secrets, lies, hurt and longing, just so that they can be told. I came here from the depths of New York, tired of life, tired of searching, hoping for new breath in a new world. London had left a door open and I walked in, but behind me, like everyone, I drag a long piece of string.