Day 24. Losing count even more

They say it takes 28 days(ish... maybe?) to form a habit.  I can feel that habit forming.  I definitely have that addictive personality we all hear so much about.  I was addicted to TV, cigarettes, hard drugs, cash cab at night, wallflowers CDs, you name it.  Now my addictions had better be reading and writing.  There's no secret to it huh?  Just keep going and you create your own world.  Still convincing myself on day 24.  But, the confidence has come around.

Continuing this story in which nothing is happening to Calvin.  Characters need to have something they care about (char about? ick) so does apathy count?  I think it counts.  Today stuff will actually happen in the story.  Just you wait.

They were coming up the stairs finally, Calvin could hear them.  They had peeled the wallpapers off the floors below, deconstrcting the fireplaces and lighting fire to them.  They removed the upholstery from chairs, the sheepskin stuffiness from the bed, the insulation from the walls.  The place was being torn apart from the bottom up.  Overall, it was a grueling progress and it had been months.

            As far as he knew, they went about it in a businesslike manner.  “They”, as far as he could tell, were only proponents of change, performing a service which necessitated their living.  He could hear them down the hall.  He removed his tooth brush, shampoo, comb, and travel canteen from his bathroom, and collected the plethora of Hawaiin shirts he had collected from his dresser drawers.  He looked at himself in the mirror which was fixed on the inside of the hotel door, a garish man whose beard gave his head an inflated, preternatural look.  His cheekbones looked more define than he could remember, but he had never inspected his own reflection in solemn reflection before this moment.

            He heard the feet marching down from the end of the hall.  He could hear the flower pots smashing, lights being bludgeoned, doors cracking.  Occasionally a gun would sound from the apartments next to his, he winced in discomfort each time they did like he was dabbed with alcohol on a wound.  Although he would expect it, there’d be no screams or howls after the shots, just the dull thuds of pictures being torn down off of walls.  He was still oblivious to what purpose it served, other than possibly driving survivors out into the streets and therefore back to reality.

            He held his wheeled luggage bag in between his arms like he was supporting its head and neck, pushing the door against the light resistance from the carpet.  The men stormed into the apartment next to his, wearing what appeared to be riot gear, nothing like how they had looked a week earlier.  An overseer type of man motioned his hand forward at the door in a “pull” gesture, when two larger helmeted men transferring the weight from the butts of their pistols into the door.

            Calvin approached the overseer with words in mind, but the man flashed a grave look at him and turned away.  Calvin had not grown too partial to his room, regardless.  He returned down the stairs to the front desk, feeling like he was filing a formal complaint.

            Wally was drinking brandy out the bottle at the desk, the spinning chair underneath him turning slightly each way underneath him. 

            “It’s supposed to get easier,”  Wally said.  Calvin dropped his antisocial front and approached the desk.  “I’m going to have to find a new hotel.”

            Calvin got a new key card for the furthest room on the highest floor.  If he started working now, he thought, he might be able to construct a barricade by the time they reached the top floor.  He shook Wally’s hand, Wall offered him a drink, but he refused.  Better not to go down that road, he thought to himself.

            The room on the top floor was wall to wall windows.  The red lights of the service towers glared through the windows like crepe paper, and the largely wicker furniture assortment took on a darker complexion through the lense of the night sky.  There was a fake palm tree in the furthest corner of the room, and a cot.  It looked like there had been a recent inhabitant.

            Calvin searched without using his hands.  He walked around like he was looking at a nice car in a sales lot, inspecting more than attempting to buy.  A woman with pointy ears, a pointy number 7 of a nose and a green dress shuffled through the apartment door, not looking too surprised at Calvin’s presence.  She looked slightly familiar to him and he couldn’t place from where.

            “They destroyed your room?”  She asked politely, stepping around and behind Calvin to wipe a smudge off of the window.  She stood on the couch, which leaned only slightly, but still unsafely, towards the window. 

            “They’re through the 7^th floor now,”  Calvin informed her, backing away toward the door.  He was yet again in a precarious position.  “I’m going to go look for another room, it’s getting late.  I’m Calvin, by the way.”  He was proud that he had introduced himself.  He reached a hand out, and held it in space for a minute before she realized it was there.  “Gloria” She shook it with an effusive effervescence. 

            “Love the palm tree.”  He said as he shut the door behind himself.  He was out on that island a thousand miles away hitting the coconut a thousand times without it busting open.  He could hear a muffled call of “Thanks” from behind the door, and although he wanted to turn around his body prevented him from doing so.

            He found a room across the hall.  Tiny, dark, little room for anything other than a bed.  This was where the nonpreferred guests were sent up to.  High and far away from the action.

            In the next week, Calvin weened himself off the habit of going out all the way to the payphone in the park.  He sat on the bed in this new room, exploring the distances of his mind.  He ran into Gloria on the way down the enormous stairwells every day.  They’d pass and he would question the amount of eye contact he was making as being too much or not enough.  For being a depressed old loner, he had certain romantic desires.

            The floor level was starting to look tidier, but Wally obviously hadn’t slept in weeks.  He swept large piles of dirt in a jerk mechanical motion with as little upper body movement as possible.  His friends were showing up less and less.  Calvin felt bad about his situation and would try his best to acknowledge him as they passed each other.  He was reasserting himself into the social world he had never been part of.

Ok it sucked again.  I like Wally though.  Maybe that's just me.