The ice has melted in the automated hotel foyer. The emptied bags repose like beached jellyfish. Every day a new wonder is washed ashore. A custodian, enfleshed, mops the water onto the sidewalk. He hums out party anthems of the eighties, nineties, and today, broadcast on a single earbud. He watches the water vaporize on the pavement. Pneuma of lakes and rivers, pneuma of oceans, wafts into crosstown traffic.
Afternoon clouds build high, distant, thundering elsewhere. A series of horizontal and vertical lines undergird the soil. They reach across oceans, across continents. The automated virtual concierge expresses sorrow at your inconvenience, at your discomfort. Between you and the room a series of protocols remain in place. The camera should be held about a foot away, right and left profile, license number, emergency contacts.
The keypad flashes. The bolt turns. Voices carry down the hall, jubilating, then are silenced, only partially, by the closing of the door. Obsolete media formats decorate the room. A record player sits on the accent table, without records to play. On the glass, interposed between other repurposed warehouses, a few scattered raindrops cling.
Sirens push along the boulevard. The fire crew wait for the elevator, checking their phones. A knock on the door goes unanswered, is rescinded, was intended for another door, another guest. Thunder thunders elsewhere, above other municipalities, adjacent districts; the lightning cannot be seen, only the rise and fall of afternoon sunlight, small reverberations on the glass.
