Hotel Walls

The paintings on the wall were strange. There were two of them, one near the door and the other opposite the bed. They were those retro science fiction artworks. Everything metallic, bright stars, and desert-like. It was a strange choice, but there was serenity to it. She stared at one of them as she sat on the end of her bed. She had arrived a day early for drug rehab treatment in CA, and as such they didn't have a room for her. They had been kind enough to put her up in a room not too far from the facility, but she wasn't sure it was a great idea. She barely wanted to go. Her body screamed against the idea, and now she had an out. An escape route had just opened up in the form of a strange hotel room. She could just leave. No one was keeping her here. She had no obligations to fill. The thought of being in rehab terrified her. She had scoured the internet, looking for the best rehab centers in California as a way to get her nagging family off of her back, but now she was here and she couldn't believe it herself.

This is okay, she thought to herself. She turned from the painting for but a moment and her eyes locked on the door. It was closed, but the chain lock on the door hung there silently, unimpeding. In the orange light sifting through the plastic shutters, the door looked like an inky-black portal to another world coated in night. It called to her like a siren's song. As she thought about standing up, a truck roared by in the night, and the shutters swayed back in forth, clattering with one another. The misty yellow light of the streetlights through the shutters danced across her face and around the room, illuminating dark corners of her escape route. The painting in front of her too came to life. The metallic desert and cold, empty blackness of space speckled with stars calmed her, surprisingly. The more she looked, the more the painting seemed to offer another route. It opened to her, and the calm of space asked for her hand. She wondered what taking it would bring. The door offered her an escape, but in reality, it was nothing more but a return from what some part of her had tried to leave behind. Yet here she was, still sitting. The hues of blue and orange and silver were intoxicating. The painting implored her to stay, and for reasons she didn't understand, she decided she would."