The couple in the hotel room next to mine alternate between screaming at each other or playing bhangra music so loud, I half expect a Bollywood cast to seep through the walls. That would be a welcome diversion from my room service meal of macaroni cheese and bottle of red wine – yes, a whole bottle, just for me, what of it? – their dazzling beauty and sparkling costumes a relief from the beige walls, beige towels and beige thoughts in this room. Room 101. Oh, how I didn’t laugh at that one, but he would have – he who didn’t meet me here, who made the reservation, who promised one of his promises and who doesn’t actually like hotels or beige or, as it turns out, me. I wonder if he likes bhangra, likes sequins, likes that unscrewing-the-lightbulb move I find so charming in Bollywood dances? He likes screaming – I remember that much – but would he like this screaming, in a language we don’t understand, with a soundtrack too jaunty for the pain in the argument hammering through the wall?
There’s crying now. The music softens. Voices plead and plait together in sorrow and love. Funny how you can hear love even if you don’t know the words wailed through sobs over dhol and zither.
I check my phone one last time for reasons, excuses and future promises, see cheese stains on my blouse – sloppy eater, sloppy mother, sloppy wife, sloppy lover. Red wine tinged lips smile at me in the mirror. The music cranks up a notch to cover the sound of reconciliation. I stand, bend my knees, toes pointed outwards, arms raised, elbows bent, chin tilted upwards, ready to bounce on my heels, reaching for imaginary blown out bulbs to unscrew. I close my eyes and dance.
Karen Jones has won first prize in the Cambridge Flash Prize, Flash 500 and Reflex Fiction. She is an editor for National Flash Fiction Day anthology. Her Novellas-in-Flash, When It’s Not Called Making Love, and Burn It All Down are published by Ad Hoc Fiction and Arroyo Seco Press respectively.
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