Room 414 of Addell's Hotel

This is the story of room 414 in Addell's Hotel. It's on the fourth floor with a view of the cracked parking lot. The window sits above a dusty radiator and is framed by two thick brown curtains. There's an old orange armchair with grease stains on it. It's frayed on the armrests and it's little wooden feet are chipped, eaten away by years in this room.

The bed is creaky and has one decorative pillow. It's orange, but a darker orange than the armchair. Above the old headboard (it's been cutting into the faded striped wallpaper, but most people don't notice), is a landscape painting of a sunset. It's mostly orange, but a different orange from the pillow and the armchair. 

The door to the hallway and bathroom can't be opened at the same time. The bathroom has no lock. The door to the hallway has one peephole and two locks. 

There is no closet.

The room is small; the armchair, bed and radiator seem to crowd the small space. It seems almost as if the room is already occupied.

The story starts on January 1st, 12:00 am.

A man by the name of Louis is asleep in the bed of room 414. Rooms 415 and 416 are loud and full of people. They are laughing at things Louis will never hear.

Room 413 is empty.

The curtains are drawn, Louis knew that the bright light of nearby fireworks might have woken him up. He had closed them when he arrived at 9:00 pm with this in mind.

Louis does not wake up to the brightness of fireworks nor the loudness of laughter. He is asleep. He is having a nightmare about someone breaking into his apartment. His apartment is across the country. It is full of things he loves: his CD collection, his cat, his coffee maker, his highschool diploma, his bedside fan that always makes just the right amount of noise, his books, his wife, his favorite mug that says Golf Tournament 2016 on it (he has never played golf, he can't remember how he got it), his baby girl who is six months old. He is watching someone pry open the door to his apartment. His face twitches in room 414. He is asleep. He hears his baby girl crying, his wife screaming his name, begging him to help. Louis can't help, he is asleep and this is a nightmare. He can only sit and watch.

On January 1st, 6:09 am, Louis accidently knocks the cheap hotel coffee onto the edge of the radiator. He doesn't have time to clean it up. He leaves the room with his suitcase. He will never step into room 414 again. The curtains are closed, the bed is unmade and warm coffee drips from the edge of the radiator.

The room is cleaned by the maid on January 2nd, 7:54 am. She hates whoever was in the room last. The coffee is dry and sticky and in between the crevices of the radiator. She curses under her breath and cleans the radiator with a scowl for 33 minutes. She misses a spot.

April 16th, 8:48 am, Janice swings open the door to room 414. She locks both the locks on the door. Looks out the peephole, just to check. She sits slowly onto the orange armchair. It is uncomfortable. She makes a disgusted face at the line of brown goop on the edge of the radiator. She hates her son for it.

She hates her son for getting arrested in a town she’s never heard of. Hates him because she feels unsafe here, because there’s a line of disgusting goop on the edge of the radiator and this chair is uncomfortable.

Her heart is beating faster than usual. Her eyes are stinging. But she doesn’t cry. She scoffs when she realizes that the decorative pillow, armchair and landscape painting are all different shades of orange. Her hatred grows a little more. How dare he.

May 30th, 2:31 pm, Angela drops her charger between the wall and the headboard. She notices that the headboard has been cutting into the striped wallpaper. For some reason it makes her feel empty. Her charger is just out of reach. She has to leave it behind.

Johnathon is staring at himself in the grimey mirror of room 414’s bathroom. It is June 14th, 12:01 am. Johnathon is shaking. His eyes are hollow. He’s run away from home. He’s nineteen. The only money he has is three quarters in his pocket. He won’t be able to pay the charge of this room when he leaves. He wonders if life is this hard for everyone and then scowls because he knows it isn’t. He sits on the ground against his bed, waiting for nothing. The sun drifts across the wall in room 414. Two of his three quarters fall out of his pocket and roll underneath the bed. He doesn’t notice.

July 5th, 7:43 pm, Sam throws the orange decorative pillow against the wall as hard as he can. It makes a dull thump. A man in room 413 tells him to quiet the fuck down. Sam flips off the wall the man is behind. He sits down hard on the orange armchair. He just now notices the orange landscape painting. His heart stills and he is filled with cold. A stupid fucking painting like that gets sold, but his paintings don’t? He is crying, but doesn’t realize it. He hopes the man in room 413 has a really bad day.

August 28th, 5:46 pm, it is Miranda’s birthday today. She is watching her husband sleep on the bed. He’s tired from the flight out. Everytime he shifts the bed creaks in protest. Those creaks are the only noise that fill the room. Miranda smiles. Tomorrow is going to be the best day of her life. The sunset makes the room extra orange. Orange is Miranda’s favorite color.

On August 29th, 4:11 pm, Miranda’s phone runs out of battery. She realizes that she forgot to pack a charger. She doesn’t let that ruin her day, though, because it was such a good day. She sits on the bed and notices a stray cord underneath her feet. She picks it up with disbelief. What a miraculous day! She plugs in her phone with the charger she found. Her husband bolsters into the room with takeout. She tells him their good luck.

September 3rd, 9:45 am, Beckett wakes up from the fiery pain in his shoulder. He has to get surgery today. Hopefully it will fix him. It’s been a while since he’s gone on a walk. He looks out the window to see the cracked pavement of the parking lot. A small family is walking together. He used to love walks. Hopefully the surgery will make things better. 

The view of the parking lot makes him forget his pain a little bit.

September 5th, 5:36 pm, Beckett’s fiance opens the door to room 414 with shaking hands. She’s trying to hold it together, but it was so unexpected. How could anyone have known he was allergic to the anesthetic? The doctor’s say there was nothing they could’ve done. They say it was a one in one millionth chance or something. They say he died peacefully. She knows he died on that cold hard fucking table. She knows he died alone. 

The surgery was supposed to make things better.

His suitcase is on the floor, it’s open and she sees his favorite green sweater folded neatly at the top. She can’t bring herself to look at it. Instead she looks out the window and sees nothing but the cracked pavement of the parking lot. It’s empty. Beckett used to love walks. What a terrible view.

November 9th, 6:24 pm, room 414 is empty. It wasn’t empty yesterday. It won’t be empty tomorrow. The room is silent and the curtains are open. Dust particles are floating through the air. Someone is singing in room 416; it is the only hint of life in room 414.

December 24th, 9:52 pm, two kids around 5 and 6, Joseph and Maria respectively, are asleep on either side of William, their father. The room is a mess even though they’d only been there for a few hours. Clothes, shoes and a few select toys litter the hard carpet. Tomorrow they are going to their Grandfather’s house to open presents. William is missing the children’s mother. He hates himself for missing her. That bitch can rot in hell. He pulls Maria and Joseph closer, trying to fall asleep.

December 25th, 6:55 am, Maria and Joseph wake up before their father. Joseph finds a quarter under the bed. Ecstatic, he wakes up his father, who tiredly follows his children into the hall.

For a few minutes the room is still. 

The door opens and Maria and Joseph run in. In Joseph’s hand is a pink gumball. Joseph asks his father to split the gumball in half. William smiles and pulls out his pocket knife. He places the gumball on the bedside table and lowers the knife to it with surgical precision. Joseph and Maria watch him intently. The gumball is old and falls apart when he tries to cut it. Maria and Joseph divvy up the chunks regardless. 

Bright pink gumball dust sprinkles the carpet in room 414.

December 30th, 9:00 am, Addell’s Hotel formerly states that it is scheduled for demolition. Room 414 is empty, the furniture is gone. There is a dark spot on the wallpaper where the landscape painting had hung all year. The furniture movers noticed the scratches in the wallpaper from the headboard, and no one had bothered to pick up the dusty quarter that was found under the bed. The entire hotel is silent.

December 31st, 11:59 pm, the lights of nearby fireworks illuminate the rubble of Addell’s Hotel with pink and blue. The crack and flash of each firework echo around the ruins. It is cold. Room 414 was the first to be struck with the wrecking ball.