Suite 201

Rooms 201, 202, and 203 are at the beginning of the hall on the 2nd floor of Laurel. The door is thick, heavy, wood, the color of cardboard, and the long, curving knob is a smooth cool gold. This door cannot be locked, and opens onto the living room.

The living room floor is carpeted in interwoven strands of green, red, and yellow, and dotted with two chairs, a couch, and two small tables, each about two feet square. The couch cover is the deep blue of the sky just after sunset on a summer night, the chair covers pale yellow embroidered with tan. Both are backed with tan wood that possesses and odd plastic sheen. The tables, too, have a clear lacquer over the pale brown grain. One table sits between the chairs, empty; the other is on the left side of the couch, topped with an unused, crisply folded pink blanket, a bag of cheese-its, two Dove chocolates and a Dove wrapper. The whole configuration seems to be trying to invite conversation, but the couches in this room are mostly unused.

A low counter painted the same pale mint green as the walls separates the living room and kitchen, lined with three four-legged walnut stools with the same glaze as the table. The fourth is upside down on the counter, pushed up far next to the wall, sharing the countertop with a a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates, a crunched up white t-shirt, a bag of dark blue foil-wrapped Dove chocolates, and a pile of short stories riddled with pencil markings. The other side of the counter is embedded with drawers, flanking an empty hip-high white fridge. In the sideboard across from the counter are more drawings, all inviting the curious searcher to open them and find all, including the cupboards and shelves above them and the drawers in the counter, are empty. The floor of this kitchen area consists of white-yellow tiles, clean except for the large empty garbage can that almost blocks the entrance to the thin space between counter and sideboard. The square silver sink, sunk into the sideboard, spews slightly sulfuric water from the faucet and onto the unwary user. The microwave, on a shelf above the sideboard, is just as unused as the fridge and drawers. An unidentified bottle of pills and a pair of large round earrings with the pattern of flowers share the rest of the sideboard.

The whitish-yellow tiles of the bathroom are scattered with a small trash can, a pile of black material that seems to be a t-shirt, and a lightly dirty white towel shoved half under the sink. Various cosmetics and shampoos perch on the countertop, sharing the space with a necklace and brush. There are two mirrors that pop out when pushed, revealing shelves holding yet more cosmetics and makeup.

Five doors are set at various intervals, a few shades darker than the pale gray-green walls. One leads to a tiled shower; another to a tiled bathroom. The one on the farthest right of the living room is always opened, empty and un-lived in, the bed stripped. The desk and wardrobe, made of a pretty walnut wood, remain empty. The last two doors are shut and locked.

One of them is mine.