August 2, 2016

lucid dreaming at Hotel Cascada

There is an indoor water park, and a little booth in the lobby where you can take
your picture and send it anyone you know. Beer glasses clink in the sports bar -
the home team clinching victory - and the new arrivals check in, bleary-eyed
from the long road trip, and head to their rooms with the straps of their luggage
hanging slightly off their shoulders. Fluorescent bulbs pockmark the hallways,
and I wonder if we're all thinking the same thing: "Why am I here?" as we fall back
on starched white pillows and climb past the fences we'd erected at daylight, intent
as we were to mark the borders of our mind's country. Now, though, we swim loosely on,
eager to meet the hands of strangers, eat at unfamiliar tables, relieved to discover
someone has saved a seat for us, and there is a meal waiting with our name on it.