Dream Beyond the Shores

I was in a hotel laying across one of those open ended sofas you see in  celebrity lifestyle shows. Flowers had been arranged, the details of which were lost upon me but the bill surely not. People began rushing in, carrying our luggage with smiles upon their face that seemed genuine. I checked my wristwatch - 2:57 am. Why had we arrived so late? 

This was a hotel I previously worked at after my life had fallen apart. I worked the night audit there, checking in affluent guests, tending to the ones who imbibed after the bar closed at 2:00 and pretending what happened in 2011 hadn't happened.

Now arriving as a guest myself, I noticed the same general manager and assistant general manager worked there. I held no ill will against them, it wasn't their fault my timeline had intersected upon theirs in such an unexpected way. Almost like a victory lap, I returned now in a position to pay the $2400 nightly fee to stay in Marilyn Monroe. The hotel didn't have room numbers per se, but every room was named after someone famous, or at least infamous. I found it fitting that we were staying in a room eponymous with someone who appeared to have everything together, but was drowning on the inside, just like me. Rather, as I used to be, things were clearly on the upswing now.

I began perusing lifestyle magazines that chronicles the "to do" people about town, the type of periodical you would only find in a doctor's office after they had disposed of it themselves. One of the guest service representatives, a young blonde women who I couldn't help but wonder what she dreamed to be when she was five, entered the room with the last of the luggage and asked if that was Desoro I was wearing. I wasn't sure what she meant, but a confident voice behind me answered that it was, and that she had picked it out for me. She sidled behind me gracefully, never breaking the cadence of her speech, explaining how she had it custom made for my nearly 7 foot frame without me knowing. She placed her hand upon my shoulder in a way that conveyed she belonged to me, and I couldn't help but notice the iceberg upon her ring finger. She was young, in her mid 20s, wearing a floral dress with long dark hair and a knowing smile. 

I knew her being there with me meant that I had won twice, conquering the world as a young man, then again after my fall from grace. I knew it meant that whatever necrosis had built inside me during those wayward years had been burnt out, brought to the light and oxidized to the subatomic level and brought a wholeness to me again that meant I didn’t have to lie anymore, didn’t have to chase the sun.

It seemed an odd question to ask, but I looked at her with pain beginning to twist my face as the answer began to whisper to me, and asked her how I got there. Then I woke up.