The asphalt feels d u s t y & r o u g h

My footsteps are silent . . .

I feel like I’m sneaking up on the place

And maybe I am

Or on whoever is in it

I can’t quite tell

I stand next to an old air conditioner

It’s rattles and clanks too loud

And I stare at a metal door

With a ( ) where a handle should be

Door, after door, after gate, after passageway, after door

There are so many new lines to step across

Yet always something ███████ the view

Of what’s on the other side

Already exhausted by what I will find

I push the door open

And step inside

He is singing

And I’m listening

And I just stand there in the dark hallway,

listening

As the singing keeps getting louder & louder

He’s coming closer

I stay where I am

And I can hear his footsteps now

The nails in the floorboards

C r e a k in protest to his weight

But, he never comes around the corner

The walls keep me hidden yet . . .

But I can’t stand still forever

So I walk along the line of the gray shadows

Leaving behind history in the dust

And I’m far too small, too light

For the nails to be bothered with me

So he never hears me coming

Over a broken chair, over the spider web net, past a crack in the wall

And he never thinks to look behind him

He never thinks to turn around

To see a thin girl in a white dress

Peering around a corner at him

From her place of darkness

Into his place of light

He stands behind a counter

His island in this a sea of the broken, empty, dirty room

Putting money into an empty, ancient cash register, and closing the drawer

And then, taking it out again

And counting it

Then putting it back in, & closing the drawer

(And again, and again)

And he still sang, the whole time

A lonely hum in a language I do not understand

A song sang by a broken man

I let him walk back down the hall

Wondering if he could hear the nails in the floorboards creak

Or if to him, they were footsteps

Of dead people, now lost in the dark

Alone again, with warm neon above me

Casting light onto the floor

I decide to step out into it

One foot, slipping out slowly from the shadows, at a time

It glared at me, for a moment

But then it decided that I could be trusted

I felt it’s sting draw back from my skin

And I felt comfortable, again

But not safe

My right hand reaches out

To the boxes on the wall behind the counter

All numbered

One for each room

Some still containing faded letters

Never opened, never read . . .

In only one does there lie a key

Golden numbers, on a red leather tag

Say ’47’

‘Do you want me to find something?’ I wonder

Grabbing the dusty metal, moving forward

I look down the dark blue hallway

And step back into the dark

Where is room 47?

What might be inside it?

I grip the key and decide to find out