ROOM 211

A BEGINNING ...

In some cases, memory loss is a way of coping with damage ... a side effect of action taken from within the body or applied to the body ... something one can't simply more on from. With that, a desire naturally comes to discover what came before ... even if what came before is best left behind. Odd as it can be, an instinct can often kick in.

You were my favourite hello and my most difficult goodbye ...

'Lights out' the call comes over a PA system.

A middle-aged woman, dressed in a long buttoned up white jacket, a black skirt worn to below her knees, gold circular rimmed glasses which she pushes back up along her nose, and dark hair tied back in a bun atop of and to the rear of her head, stops at a pair of opened doubled doors. She takes a brief look into the room she has come to and then makes a note on a clipboard she has with her.

She turns out the lights to this room she has come to then closes over the thick wooden framed and double-glazed glass paneled double doors and from the outside of the room she wraps thick steel chains round and through the long vertical door handles and padlocks these doors shut. Once she is well clear of where she had come to, the lights in the hallway outside said room also go out.

Within this large rectangular public hall like room, there are eight single sized beds, two against the far wall opposite the doors and three against either adjoining wall, all in close proximity to one another and to the beds facing the doors and as it is all beds are well away from those double doors, each bed having more than enough room for a person or even two people to manoeuver around comfortably without either person getting in the other's way.

At the corners of the room on the inside, and either side of the double doors, there are small box rooms measuring no more than six feet by six feet. One is a toilet unit which facilitates one person at a time and the other houses a walk-in, wheelchair accessible shower unit which also is designed for singular use at any given time. Both units are unisex and are not a topic of discontent. Within the main room's eight beds are eight people, one to each bed, five male and three female and they have other things to consider other than whom else uses the units they themselves have need to use.

Once the lights have been turned off and the doors have been locked one of the women begins to sing softly and calmly, possibly to keep herself calm more so than to calm those around her though calm the others it does. Maybe the singing is her own natural introverted behaviour acting out, maybe it is something else.

One verse of the song is sung on this occasion and nothing else is spoken or sung leaving silence to remain. The song sung ...

My Bonnie lies over the ocean,
My Bonnie lies over the sea.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean.
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me.

Yeah, some things are best forgotten, and some things aren't. Sometimes there are reasons why a memory is lost. If you were ever to forget then wouldn't you be tempted to try find out what it is you cannot remember, no matter if consequences come with remembering?

***

In Castletown, it is easy to become lost, so lost that you can become invisible to all around you if you so desired. This large town could easily be thought of as a small city. You could go wandering hours, or days even and not encounter one single person you know and that would be with having spent your whole life here. The flip side of this could also be true. You could be in a rush and get nowhere fast for the number of connections you have made in your lifetime could come closing in and be encountered continuously over a short or even lengthy period of time creating delay in the most unperceptive of times.

There could be something to this place, this town, something familiar, and there could also be something unrecognizable. A strong community in a busy city like town, a lot can be done, a lot can be achieved and if one were to plan something let's say ... somewhat experimental on a grand scale then this town could be as likely a place to achieve any goal set out as anywhere else. Between the known and the unknown, things can become complicated without being implicated.

The Mulberry Hotel if one of five Castletown hotels, it is the largest and is often a focal point for many town residents and visitors alike. One room here is about to become a main focal point for one heck of a mystery. If anything, it is a starting point for one. One, of a group of eight people who wake in various places within this town on the same day, wakes in this very room.

Nothing odd or unusual about eight people waking within the same town on the same day but eight people waking in separate and peculiar areas with no memory of who they are, well that certainly is odd, make it nine, eight of whom are drawn to room number 211of The Mulberry Hotel then things really are getting strange.

Secrets will be held within, discussed within, and revealed within. Room 211 will be where many a secret, many a discussion and many a reveal will come out into the open.

All that is needed to piece things together are the details.