voices down the corridor

Walking down an empty corridor, an endless row of similar doors on each side. Worn and stained carpet. A faint odour of mildew. Murmuring voices behind some of the doors.

Reminds me of a dream. But this is real, this is a hotel.

Getting to know all its rooms, its nooks and crannies, is acquiring control. Knowing the good rooms, the ones to avoid, the one that smells, the one with the funny wallpaper, the one that has been converted to storage space. Deciding which one I would stay in if I had the chance. I walk down the corridor with purpose, jingling my master key.

I know what writer Paul Theroux meant when he wrote about the hotel he managed: "Shared by so many dreaming strangers, every room was vibrant with their secrets... the left-behind atoms and the residue of all the people who had ever stayed in it... Assigning people to such rooms, I believed I was able to influence their lives."

My brother, after millions of business trips, claims that hotel rooms are cold and dreary. But for me, knowing intimately how alive and vital an organism the hotel is and being in the middle of it, the rooms are a quiet and peaceful refuge. Hurrying into an empty room to look for something, I often pause to breathe. Occasionally, on quiet days, the staff sneak into one to watch TV while the boss is away. Sometimes I have been allowed to stay overnight and enjoyed the luxury of marble bathrooms with soft towels and expensive, complimentary cosmetics, or been amused by the bygone-era-atmosphere of rooms too old to be sold to paying customers.

Weary business travellers, elated families on holiday, backpackers, couples in love, people who move in groups, drifters with nowhere else to stay, people with hope in their eyes and others with despair in their entire being. All away from home, for good or for bad, and I can only imagine their feelings and experiences in these rooms.

It's true, in a hotel you really see it all. Cosmos packed into a corridor with doors leading... who knows? And I hold the master key.