The Pure Life of Dreams

April 25, 2025April 25, 2025

Dirty Fingernails

I saw a woman seated at the entrance to the hotel. She had a dark complexion, long black hair and a black dress, and her fingernails were dirty with the remains of clawed at Indian snake and I wanted to be with her.

March 30, 2025April 25, 2025

Dark Room Reunion in New York City

We sit in a darkened hotel room in New York City, curtains drawn, Siobhan and I, and I’m in my undershirt and blue boxers.

We are waiting for the arrival of Ruth and FG from the UK.

I haven’t seen them since way back when, and I’m excited to see them again after all this time. When I hear their voices in the corridor I wonder whether to put on trousers because I have a slight erection from the anticipation.

It’s too late. The door swings opens and Ruth comes in first followed closely by John who at first I think is FG’s husband but, up close, I realize that he is Ruth’s husband.

As Ruth walks towards me, I come round the side of the bed, squeezing between the bed and the TV sideboard. I must lean forwards to greet her, I realize, to keep my boxers away from our hug, so that she won’t detect my arousal.

We have a delicious hug, my arms wrapped around the curve of her shoulders, and she kisses me on the cheek. Her dark curly hair is still black despite our ages. It brings back cozy memories of the past, though we never had a thing. It was the writing that was our bond. And suddenly, it doesn’t seem to matter that I’m in my boxers.

Then John, a big burly man, comes up to me and we have a big handshake and a brief hug. It’s good to see him too though we’ve never met before.

Behind John is FG. The cold light of the hotel corridor is behind her and I have fully circled the bed. I am now closer to the door when she and I hug.

FG and I have an even tighter embrace, for she was my first girlfriend, and the memories there are even stronger. Her soft curls are darker than the ginger I remember of her hair then. She smells of Pears soap and fields of sunflowers.

FG and I kiss on the cheeks but in our tight embrace, we fall onto the bed and her crow like black eyes look at me, as if she can see into my memories, or worse, she sees the picture I don’t want seen, developing in the orange light of her photographer’s tray. Her soft curls feel like a down pillow on my cheeks.

We roll across the bed and accidentally, roll off the other side, the side closest to the window. I push out a leg to break the fall as we hold onto each other, and with my ~~right~~ left leg planted on the prickly carpet I stop us from falling to the floor.

Instead, with our bodies hugging in a friendly way, the way of old friends but with a hint of what could have been – only a hint mind – everything seems alright.

Photo by Danny Birchall via Flickr.

January 20, 2022April 25, 2025

Anxiety and Finding the Bathroom in a Hotel

I step out of the hotel and ask to hitch a ride in the back of a white van with a group of doctors. They also have to go to a conference, all of them dressed in white coats and talking amongst themselves about the day’s events. I check my papers, they’re in the case with me and we are headed downtown, the day bright with the early morning sun like you only find in Washington.

Then the van pitches suddenly to the right, down a steep spiral cobblestone street. We flit past old buildings covered with posters and tall enough to block out the sky.

“Woah!” the doctors cry out as they grip the door handles of the van.

I need to leave, it is the wrong way for me.

“Can I get out?’’ I plea with the driver, but only at the bottom, the van comes to a halt and the driver lets me go.

I am in a park, green manicured lawn, the walls on one side remind me of the Tower of London. Then I notice the doctors get out too and it becomes clear that they are actually sightseeing.

To get some directions I step into another hotel but realize I’ve forgotten something on the van. What was it? I have my wallet and my jacket jangles with keys. Whatever it was, it cannot have been important and first I need to pee.

“Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” I ask a woman in uniform.

She points up towards to the bar area. “Then go through to the steps on the other side”, she says.

I follow the sign through the bar, spot the entrance then slowly I descend slick orange and white marble steps glistening with moisture from below. The steps spiral down, each becoming more slippery, but instead of a bathroom I come to what looks like the steam room of a gym. There is a man behind the steamed up glass, whistling and the steps are fully wet now. I shouldn’t go in I think to myself, he is probably undressed and uncertainly, I turn back.

(Then I remember what it was, that I left my camera in the van, brand new, a pocket camera that I had rested between my thighs when in the van. It’s annoying, but it’s not my immediate concern.)

I am in a restaurant area when I ask the woman, I think she is the same person, “Where again is the bathroom?” But her answer is not clear.

“Look, I’m going to piss in that thing right there in the middle of the restaurant”, I retort, pointing at an oval shaped vase with toothed rim made of some sort of alabaster. It is pretty, but only a foot or so high, a strange place for it, in the middle of the restaurant. You could trip over the vase if you were not looking.

“You can’t do that!” she replies.

I take off my cardigan, and throw it on the ground in front of her for it is getting hot. Then I throw down my jacket, right there. A man comes into the restaurant, he doesn’t see it on the floor and steps right on the splayed out jacket.

“Hey!” I shout at him. “You’re standing on my jacket!”

He looks up at me threateningly, curls up his left sleeve and makes a fist to swipe me with. He is young, well built in a smart gray jacket; has a handsome face and short curly black hair.

I don’t want to fight. I feel an affinity with him… Instead it would be better for us to get a drink at the bar.

Photo by Stephen Bowler from PxHere