The Glass Slipper Hotel

1

It’s crazy that I’m writing this. It’s crazy that I’m still alive writing about it. I guess this is the only thing I can do--- write it out of my brain once and for all. It was the day I decided to take my wife on a vacation after I quit my job as a writer for the local newspaper. It was a bore---the job, I mean. The job had lost its spark after two decades of it. I never believed in ghosts or any of the shit we used to tell to each other at summer camp. I don’t believe in anything, actually, I don’t believe in the man up there in the sky, giving people cancer or making them win the lottery. What sort of God or Being would kill random people and let others pick up the pieces?

I’m reaching the age where memory turns to tapioca pudding. So, that’s why I’m writing this. I wouldn’t want to forget about the crazy stuff that happened to me twenty years ago. The therapist told me that this will help with the nightmares. I told him that it was a bullshit idea and he could stick it up his ass for all I care but look at me now; I’m doing exactly what that shrink told me. I guess he was right, after all, writing should take it out of my mind. I hope he’s right. I really do.

It was the fourth or fifth of December that I “decided” to quit my job. The morning was cold and dreary and it looked like it was going to rain. I woke up normally which was a miracle because I usually woke up with my back hurting like hell and my throat dry as a cracker. I stretched out my arms and dragged myself out of bed. I was supposed to wake up earlier to write a story about a bakery using cats as meat but I wasn’t really in the mood for it. Like I told you, the job had lost its spark.

My wife’s cooking brought me out of my sleepiness. I lumbered towards our bathroom. I sighed as I looked at the mirror. I was getting old; they say that life starts at forty, well, that was ten years ago and the only thing that kept me alive was my wife.

Not bad for an oldie, I thought, examining my face through the water stains on the mirror. My wrinkles were showing but I didn’t give a damn about them. My face was sagging a little but I couldn’t do anything to help it. I worried for my eyes though, I’ve always treasured my eyes and I’ve kept them as healthy as possible. I' have this fear of losing my eyesight, I don’t know why. It just scares me that one day I’ll wake up to eternal darkness. My eyes were a pleasing color. Not too dark, not too light—they were an average shade of blue.

I started my daily routine without any problems with my back. It was a strange day that day, very strange indeed. I was feeling too happy about my back when I descended the staircase. Normally, it would punch a brilliant bolt of pain up my spine that would send me cursing but, today, it stayed quiet.

“Morning,” I said as I passed the doorway into our kitchen.

“Good Morning, dear.”

“How’s my lovely wife doing on this cold bitter morning?” I asked as I sat down on a chair and gladly took a swig of coffee, that was prepared for me, from the table.

“I said good right before the word morning, yes?” she asked me with her clever smile.

“Indeed you did,” I said, smiling back. My wife was truly beautiful even then when she was fifty five. She was older than me and I had used to watch her come and go at the department store where I had work for as a teen. I don’t know what I did to win her over but I’m sure as hell glad that I did. She'd had long auburn hair that had burned bright when the sun hit it right. I guess that was the thing I was fascinated most about her---well, that and her lips. The way they had stretched into thin red lines when she had smiled had always made me halt and grin to myself. Although she had lost the luster and the deep color of her hair to the graying orange caused by ageing, it didn’t lose its charm on me. I felt the same way about her hair even now.