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When I found her again she was too busy rustling through the
contents of the old conference room to even notice me. Beams of
light from the moon managed to sneak their way in through delicate,
fluttering curtains illuminating glowing strips across the floor. In
what the light could pick up there was yet more glistening glass
amongst a conglomeration of various other items strewn across the
floor. The moon also landed her in a pool of light, her hood now
pushed back allowing the light to frame her, her hair darker than the
night outside, her back still towards me. The shutter from my
camera fractured the silence yet again.
‘Why do you do that?’ She inquired, without even hazarding a
look my way.
‘Do what?’
‘You know,’ she gestured, ‘the photos.’ She finally looked up at me.
‘I mean, what’s so interesting about a heap of broken old junk?’ She
looked me in the eye before turning back to rummage through a
stack of withering, deceased old books. I turned my camera over in
my hands before responding.
‘I find beauty in decay.’ I finally replied. ‘People might only see
this place as an abandoned, crummy old motel, but to me it’s like a
forest. A forest filled with mystery and beauty just waiting to be
uncovered.’ I looked up from the camera to see her facing me,
listening attentively.
‘See, that’s where you and I are different. To you, this place is a
forest. To me, it’s a jungle.’
I leaned down to pick up one of the books sitting in the pile, the
word ‘genesis’ printed in small, almost indiscernible text across the
top of the crumpled page of the standard issue motel room bible.
Flipping it over the old cover seemed to be withered and creased,
like an old woman’s complexion.
‘Ironic, huh?’ I turned the Bible towards her. She shot me an
incredulous look. I tossed the Bible into her hands. ‘Finding
something like this in ‘Motel Hell.’’
She smirked.
I was too busy taking pictures of the pool when I lost her again.
The frozen water still left there, home to a number of crates and
pillows and bicycle wheels hanging contentedly in their watery life.
The now obsolete ‘Pool Out of Order’ sign still attached to the
decrepit gate, singing softly in the wind, swaying on its hinges. This
Motel Hell
10