The Body in Room 1326
The sensation of having my feet firmly on the ground, legs locked straight and strong, yet completely unable to move them is both alarming and comforting. I can’t move out of the way when someone sits on me, but I will never fall again — no matter how hard I’m knocked about.
Years ago, I’m not sure how many now, I died on this shabby hotel sofa. Nothing brutal, I promise. A cocktail. Some pills. And a sleep I wasn’t supposed to wake from.
Admittedly I thought I’d wake up somewhere different. Whether in hell, another body, or perhaps lodged in a memory somewhere in time, I was expecting to wake anywhere but here.
When I woke without opening my eyes like only one consumed by death can, I lingered in my body, unsure of where to go or what to do. It took them a week to find my human body. No one had called to check in on me. I couldn’t blame them; they had grown accustomed to me taking days, sometimes weeks to get back to them. The hotel staff only came when they needed a new card to charge for the room. By that time, I had lingered so long I had merged with the sofa. I thought I’d follow them out, lifting with my body as if I was still woven into the biological fibers. But I didn’t. And I couldn’t.
I can’t move my legs. I can’t avert my gaze. I can slip into a dark space where nothing else dwells except for my thoughts, but when I come back to this world again, I am merely an old, smelly hotel room sofa.
Luckily, I can’t smell myself anymore. A hot or cold room doesn’t bother me like it used to. Neither does the shuffling from rooms down the hall. However, I can still feel. I can feel the way a body relaxes to mold into my cushions, the push and pull of a couple making love — although knowing what I’ve seen and felt here, I’d never suggest doing that on a hotel room sofa. You don’t want to know what I’ve seen or what I’ve felt smeared on me.
One time, visiting children ripped my cushions from my frame in a painless motion that left me shattered and shaking somewhere only I could experience it. I thought about excusing myself to that void, but my vision was glued on them, watching them like they’d disemboweled me and were now playing and giggling with my innards.
They got excited by the change lodged in my crevices — things that I felt but was never bothered by, like a fly I couldn’t shoo away. Their mother covered one of the cushions with a baby blanket and let the youngest nestle into me. I felt needed. I felt warm.
I was an observer in life, letting the days flash by only witnessing what I was doing, instead of actively participating. It felt out of control, my life before, my life as a human. Somehow, this makes more sense to me. I feel useful now in a way I didn’t before.
Maybe this is hell, my personal purgatory. Trapped to be a witness to the lives of others, truly not in control, and doomed to repeat my life without a voice, without a heart.
What will happen the next time they come to remove my body from 1326 I wonder?
