This one night I heard a woman screaming in the hotel directly next to my place. I saw straight into her room, pacing around. "MY ARM! YOU HURT MY ARM! YOU BROKE MY ARM!" I kind of knew her arm wasn't broken, dunno why.
Watching transfixed, that familiar feeling of adrenaline and relief that it wasn't me that was in trouble. She stopped. I went back inside from my balcony. Five minutes later she started up again and I thought FUCK. Now I have a civic duty to help. You knew how some poor soul gets violently murdered and the neighbours get interviewed saying "Well, we did hear screaming and a ruckus."
So, you didn't think to call the cops or do something? Ugh. Had to put on my ugg boots walk out into the rain, I got three umbrellas you think I can find one?
Annoyed at the interruption to my otherwise usual night of penance solitude, I slipped over on the steps outside reception because a German guy pushed past me?
I said "OH EXCUSE ME SORRY." Oblivious German guy checks in and it takes ages. I stood behind him judging his clothes, his accent, his luggage. What a Dickward Street.
Told the lovely receptionist I'd heard screaming from the room three windows across from the top floor. She looked concerned, thanked me, said she'd look into it. Civic duty DONE so when I got interviewed by the media the next day I'd look good because I'd reported it.
I'm so jealous of the people coming in and out of that hotel! It's fun to stay in hotels. Obviously they've come up to the mountains for a great getaway. Groups of middle-aged couples, honeymooners, bunches of 20-something people who appear to have their shit together. I hear them talking. "Ok we'll go up and buy some fruit, let's all meet up at the restaurant after the bushwalk." Wow. People doing normal good things with friends. Here the redhead alien sits, watching people lives go by.
The worst is seeing the children. Piling out of cars, yelling, shouting crying laughing, being turds, safe with their parents. Bet their mum never abandoned them out of desperation to spare them from a mum who is capable of abandoning them even if she thought it was for their own good. It was just for a few months a year ago but now it's prolonged not by my choice maybe that's how it's supposed to be right now. Acceptance is hard. But it's not about me, anymore.
Anyways so these happy families, ugh. Fuck off happy families no offence. It HOITS.
Sometimes people are out in the parking lot lighting cigars, shooting the shit, and they look up at me looking down at them and I either duck or quickly look the other way pretending I'm not looking at them. Wondering what their story is.
Jeff my neighbour sat down next to me one morning and I told him my Envious Parking Lot Predicament. It was a while back, just after I asked him to drive me to the psych ward and I only lasted there three days until the docs deemed I didn't have to be there, lol. There's a difference between mental illness and just having a heart so broken it sends you into abyss.
He turned it all around in just one sentence. "Eden, you have no idea why these people are here or what they're going through."
Wow.
How many of the hotel carpark people are here to attend a funeral? Have a dysfunctional family reunion they're dreading? The happy honeymooners could actually be on the last legs of their long marriage I mean major props for desperately trying to save what cannot be saved. The elderly group of people together for their very last hurrah? The two random strangers on a weird tinder date at midnight and the guy's into piss sex and the chick runs out of the room and SHE'S the one who paid for the room even when she's broke. The family of beautiful people in a mini-van who just got harassed on the freeway up here by an irate driver just because of the colour of their skin. Sad desperate hookers. I don't feel better at these scenarios or people's misery it just makes me more connected to humanity and not so Robinson Crusoe.
There actual families with young children screaming and crying and the mother yells at the father and the grandmother chimes in saying "JUST GET THE BABY OUT AND I'LL HOLD HER WHILE YOU CHECK IN TO OUR ROOM" and they don't know they're being watched but I'm watching. Not judging, not smug. Just watching.
Obviously there's happy people still driving in for a happy adventure and people derive joy from life, which is so cool. Feels good to mean that instead of being bitter. I don't want life to turn me bitter.
Doesn't matter if you step out of a pristine white four-wheel drive Porsche or a dusty Commodore .. we all got baggage in the boot.
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Watching transfixed, that familiar feeling of adrenaline and relief that it wasn't me that was in trouble. She stopped. I went back inside from my balcony. Five minutes later she started up again and I thought FUCK. Now I have a civic duty to help. You knew how some poor soul gets violently murdered and the neighbours get interviewed saying "Well, we did hear screaming and a ruckus."
So, you didn't think to call the cops or do something? Ugh. Had to put on my ugg boots walk out into the rain, I got three umbrellas you think I can find one?
Annoyed at the interruption to my otherwise usual night of penance solitude, I slipped over on the steps outside reception because a German guy pushed past me?
I said "OH EXCUSE ME SORRY." Oblivious German guy checks in and it takes ages. I stood behind him judging his clothes, his accent, his luggage. What a Dickward Street.
Told the lovely receptionist I'd heard screaming from the room three windows across from the top floor. She looked concerned, thanked me, said she'd look into it. Civic duty DONE so when I got interviewed by the media the next day I'd look good because I'd reported it.
I'm so jealous of the people coming in and out of that hotel! It's fun to stay in hotels. Obviously they've come up to the mountains for a great getaway. Groups of middle-aged couples, honeymooners, bunches of 20-something people who appear to have their shit together. I hear them talking. "Ok we'll go up and buy some fruit, let's all meet up at the restaurant after the bushwalk." Wow. People doing normal good things with friends. Here the redhead alien sits, watching people lives go by.
The worst is seeing the children. Piling out of cars, yelling, shouting crying laughing, being turds, safe with their parents. Bet their mum never abandoned them out of desperation to spare them from a mum who is capable of abandoning them even if she thought it was for their own good. It was just for a few months a year ago but now it's prolonged not by my choice maybe that's how it's supposed to be right now. Acceptance is hard. But it's not about me, anymore.
Anyways so these happy families, ugh. Fuck off happy families no offence. It HOITS.
Sometimes people are out in the parking lot lighting cigars, shooting the shit, and they look up at me looking down at them and I either duck or quickly look the other way pretending I'm not looking at them. Wondering what their story is.
Jeff my neighbour sat down next to me one morning and I told him my Envious Parking Lot Predicament. It was a while back, just after I asked him to drive me to the psych ward and I only lasted there three days until the docs deemed I didn't have to be there, lol. There's a difference between mental illness and just having a heart so broken it sends you into abyss.
He turned it all around in just one sentence. "Eden, you have no idea why these people are here or what they're going through."
Wow.
How many of the hotel carpark people are here to attend a funeral? Have a dysfunctional family reunion they're dreading? The happy honeymooners could actually be on the last legs of their long marriage I mean major props for desperately trying to save what cannot be saved. The elderly group of people together for their very last hurrah? The two random strangers on a weird tinder date at midnight and the guy's into piss sex and the chick runs out of the room and SHE'S the one who paid for the room even when she's broke. The family of beautiful people in a mini-van who just got harassed on the freeway up here by an irate driver just because of the colour of their skin. Sad desperate hookers. I don't feel better at these scenarios or people's misery it just makes me more connected to humanity and not so Robinson Crusoe.
There actual families with young children screaming and crying and the mother yells at the father and the grandmother chimes in saying "JUST GET THE BABY OUT AND I'LL HOLD HER WHILE YOU CHECK IN TO OUR ROOM" and they don't know they're being watched but I'm watching. Not judging, not smug. Just watching.
Obviously there's happy people still driving in for a happy adventure and people derive joy from life, which is so cool. Feels good to mean that instead of being bitter. I don't want life to turn me bitter.
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Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell