“Traveler,” the radio cracks, “Traveler.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you want?” it asks, “You don’t look so well, traveler. You look sick.”
“It took you a while to get here.”
“It doesn’t take me any time to get anywhere. You know that as well as me.”
“Well it took you some time to speak up.”
…
“Where are we, traveler? It’s dark here.”
“Shitty hotel.”
“We’ve been here for a while, in the dark.”
“That’s what I was saying.”
“If you are not traveling, then I don’t know what to call you.”
“We’ll hit the road again once I’m better. No need to think up a new name.”
“Still…”
…
“Would music help you, mmm, traveler?”
“No.”
“Would cleaning up help the smell?”
“Are you offering?”
“I am not.”
…
It’s three days before I open the window, a few days longer before I turn the bolt in the door. I am gone long enough to get ice. My legs are still weak and the day is bright and painful. The world has taken on a foreign smell, not a pleasant one. Or else that’s me relative to the new freshness.
Yes, a moment’s investigation confirms it is me.
I hurry back.
The door to my room is ajar; did I leave it that way? It is only open a crack, hardly enough for a passerby to notice. Hardly enough to let in air. It’s the space left when a closed door doesn’t quite latch, or when a trespasser doesn’t want to make a sound. Closed, but for being open.
I push inside.
The room is thick with human evaporations, with sweat and feces and, distantly, with cigarette smoke. This is a dim place, a place that resists light. The bathroom door is closed and light seeps out between the cracks. There may have been movement there as I watched but, now the subject of my focus, the room pleas vacancy.
If only there were a window.
“Is it here?” I ask into the darkness.
The radio, improperly adapted to the wall socket, buzzes and pops. The lights in the hallways flicker.
“Is what here, traveler?”
There is movement in the bathroom, I see it again.
“It might be best if you close the door, traveler,” the radio says, “It is unhealthy to linger between spaces.”
“That’s not…”
Another movement in the bathroom, the sound of a cabinet quietly closing.
“You are still not well. Is it not my duty to remind you?”
“You’re supposed to warn me when something breaks in here too.”
“There is nobody but yourself here, traveler. Even I, by most definitions, am not where you are.” The radio laughs at this, “Heh, heh, heh.”
I hear the sound of a toilet seat dropping, the rustle and tear of toilet paper.
“There is something in the bathroom, I mean. Don’t you hear that?”
The voice is quiet for a moment and I assume it’s listening. As the moment grows longer I realize it has simply chosen to end the conversation. I stand alone with the thing until, against my better judgment, I slip inside and close the door, close and latch to banish whatever liminal space may have existed. In the failing confidence of my decision I feel my heartbeat, quick with fear and anticipation.
I start the coffeepot and wonder if one evil might provide respite from another. The thing in the bathroom quiets down, some. The door there is like the last, closed but unlatched. Tenuously open.
The wayside is a place for things we’ve forgotten or failed to do and as I travel here I find it difficult to see past my own failings, or, I suppose, to discern them from the successes I carry with me. In a place littered with broken bottles and used needles, things that jab and poke and hook into your soles, it’s hard to tell if you’re being followed or if you’re just dragging something behind you.
I’ve begun to understand that mine is the latter case.
The toilet flushes and I hear the too-friendly jingle of a belt. Inside, the thing stands and pulls faded jeans up over its pale, distended belly. Its movements are lazy and vulgar, its breathing deep and steady. The hairs on my arms prick up as I hear it splash its hands about in the sink. My own body is itching and sick.
I remember the ice, now half-melted. I make a cool rag with one eye on the bathroom door. I climb into bed, between the damp sheets, and I cover my face.
“Traveler?” the radio clicks, “Traveler? Should I still warn you when something is coming? Will you believe me when I say there is nothing?”
“Yes,” I say under the rag, “Sure.”
“There is nothing now, traveler. Nothing now or before.”
-traveler
