The Facade at Night

Late, after a day of courtyards and too much walking, I sat down on the hotel steps like a person with nowhere better to be, which by then was true. The facade glows warm white at night, the red neon spells the name into the dark, and the avenue behind me ran quieter and quieter until each passing car was an event.

A doorman decided I was harmless and let me sit. Above us the building did what old grand hotels do at night: it became its own archive. Somewhere up there is the floor where the receptions were, the windows that watched the parades, the corridor where every important century-guest was walked to bed by staff sworn to noticing nothing.

I thought about writing in the notebook and did not. Some evenings you file directly. Tomorrow, the ballroom, if my nerve and the staff allow it.