In a half-remembered homage to Polanski’s Repulsion, there are tight fists punching through walls, and faces floating in the spillage on the bathroom floor. I’m in the kind of hotel that dead people write short stories about, with neither clear beginnings nor satisfactory conclusions, but only poorly sketched protagonists wearing my old shoes, stumbling down corridors that all look the same. The drains smell of old-school arty cinemas, and I recall that the best way to ruin date night with an aspiring ceramicist is to book tickets for Belle de Jour instead of Jour de Fête. The horror, the horror, and pardon my French indeed. The taps run rust that looks like blood, and room service offers nothing but vinegar and raw nettles. I’ve been here 120 days, and I’ve a feeling the meals won’t improve. I’ve a suspicion that more people have died in these lift shafts than can be accounted for by sheer misfortune, and I’ve the nagging sensation that this isn’t a hotel at all. Perhaps it’s a hospital of some kind or another. Perhaps it’s a home, whatever that means.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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