Hotel Madras

I wanted to make it to Bend to see my husband and rest, but I couldn't drive any more. My eyes were playing tricks and my judgment was waining. I spotted an old building with an interesting neon sign and pulled over. The lobby was a real estate office and law firm. The man had an x-files feel, and I gathered we were the only ones in the hotel. He proceeded to take me on a tour of all the rooms, which he had restored and decorated himself. Each room had a different theme, and yet the general decor matched that of my grandma's house. Is this a 1940's asthetic? Flowered heavy drapes, cloth covered lamps, wood furniture, and polyster beadspreads? The hotel had been built in 1911, and although he tried to convince me that all the furniture in the "president's suite" in which I stayed was from that year, I suspected the burnt orange velour lazy boy may have been from a later era. Before I realized that the bathrooms had motion sensored lights, I thought the place was haunted, as lights and fans popped on when I walked down the hall. I spent a heart pounding fifteen minutes thinking of the Shining and Barton Fink- isolated hotel movies in which people die. When the lights clicked off of their own accord ten minutes later, then popped on again when I tiptoed back down the hall to use the toilet, i decided I could relax. Later I heard the unmistakable creaks of foot steps in the hallway. I thought maybe he was stalking me, waiting till i went in the hall to use the bathroom again to kill me. I pretended that I was in conversation on my cell phone saying the name of the place and the time I could be expected in the morning, even though I didn't get reception. After two hours of bad TV, I finally fell asleep, and in the light of morning everything felt harmless. The green linoleum, silk flowers, and ceiling fans in the hallway held no more threats, and the flowered runner on the stairs made me marvel at a lonely elderly man's aesthetic.