You Don't Belong in the Hotel Reputation

This was one of those stories inspired by a dream; a very strange and alien dream, yet also very pleasant; a dream dominated by the feeling of not having the first idea where you are, or what this place is all about, yet strangely feeling welcome. This is the story of a young man who finds himself in a place he knows he does not belong, yet can’t walk away from.

You Don't Belong in the Hotel Reputation

But I went there anyway.

I was walking on the shoulder of the highway. I was headed east from the big city back to the coastal suburbs where I grew up. Another excursion into the horizon, another attempt to find my way in the world had ended in an embarrassing failure. Fool that I was to think I could have fit in with the elites of the city, whose blacker-than-black suits repelled every particle of dust that fell from the sky, whose chins always glided parallel to the ground.

Who was I to dare?

My backpack pulled on my shoulders, weighed down by trinkets of my failure; things that had cost me a lot of money but were useless to me now.

The cars bolted past me to and from the place where I was going, and the place that I was coming back from.

I knew the Hotel Reputation was coming up on my right. It was invisible within the forest through which this highway passed, and would remain invisible as I passed it. But I was well aware of its existence. There was never a time I took to this highway without being aware, in some way, of its existence. People I knew didn't talk about the place a lot, even as we would pass it by from time to time. Maybe they weren't thinking about it. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe they were resigned to dismiss it from their minds, realizing that it was a place they could never afford to be. I don't even remember how I first heard about this place of such aggressive exclusivity.

I thought once more about the failure behind me. I thought about having to recount it to my family in the place that lay ahead of me. I thought about where I was, trudging through the sun in the middle of it, dampening my cheap clothes with sweat. Even the haircut I got to look the part of success was becoming overgrown with uneven strands like the weeds popping up along the shoulder of the highway.

And then it came.

I stopped and looked right, where the trees parted to a path that didn't seem wide enough for a car. I realized in that moment that I had never seen a car or a bike or even a person take this narrow path to the Hotel Reputation.

Before I thought about it, before I felt myself once again deny the temptation, my feet were moving in a different direction. I found myself passing under the canopy, into the mouth of the endless forest.

The trail darkened as it grew longer. The buzz of the passing cars behind me faded to a dull hum until that too soon faded under the gentle rustling of leaves in the wind.

The trail let out into a large field of freshly-cut grass. But the forest around it was still so thick that the canopy almost reached into the center of the clearing. But not quite. The blue sky above, with its odd passing cloud, shown down on the field, and on the Hotel Reputation, which stood on the end of the field.

The building was big, but not as big as I had imagined. It was white and made of stone. Covering its face were tall black windows which reflected the green trees across the field before it. I could even see myself. I was tiny, but I was there.

There was no parking lot. There weren't any vehicles at all and I didn't see any people yet. But the place felt far from lonely. Although I didn't see or hear anybody, the serenity of the place came entirely without loneliness.

A slim street passed in front of the building. It came out of the woods from one side of the field, and went back in on the other side. I figured there must have been some other way to get to this place by car. I never knew where these entrances to the woods might have been, but I never got out much. And when I did, it was with such purpose that I never saw outside of the strained periphery of that purpose.

I was still a long way off in my approach to the front entrance of the hotel when the doors were opened. I didn't know if someone was leaving, or if the door was opening for me.

If it was for me, they'd see me, my cheap clothes and disheveled look. I was sure they'd still let me in, but it would be awkward. They'd stare at me like an offensive stain and ask me if I was lost. I'd have that feeling again. The feeling of not belonging.

I just wanted to see the place. I didn't have to go inside.

I went off course, around the building, seeing it at different angles: the designs along the corners, under the windows. There was a firmness to the structure. The way it stood so solidly in place, it seemed like an earthquake couldn't pull it out of the ground.

It did make me wonder what the place looked like on the inside. I felt a pang for just a taste of the interior architecture, to see what the furniture was made out of, what color the walls were.

I scanned the outer wall for a side door. I wasn't seriously considering actually walking inside, but... if I was, maybe there wouldn't be as much judgment awaiting me at the side doors. No doorman, no front desk. Maybe no people. Just me. Just a peek.

I was in a little garden when I noticed just the sort of discreet side door I was searching for. It was at the end of a concrete walkway, similar to something I remember from my grandmother's house when I was little. There were cypress trees along the way, guiding my eyes to that side door.

I walked the path and headed toward it. It took longer to get there than I would have guessed.

As I came within a few paces of the door, two people came onto the concrete path from beyond one of the cypress trees, as though out of thin air. The side door opened, and a fat woman in a purple robe and a beehive hairdo addressed them with a laugh as she waved a smoking cigarette in her hand.

The two people entered the building and the big purple lady held the door open for them.

And for me.

I immediately started walking in another direction.

Over my shoulder, I heard her say, "Is he coming in?"

I made my way around the quiet yard to the back. There was a pool so fancy I wasn't sure if it was meant for swimming. A light mist lingered over it. There were more cypress trees, and a few Japanese maples doting the green with speckles of red.

I tried to see through the glass of the back door, but I couldn't, even as I stood right up to it. I thought maybe if I cupped my eyes and pressed my face against the glass... but no; I didn't want to look foolish to whoever might be looking out at me from the inside.

I put my hand to the door. I pressed my thumb down on the latch.

I hadn't pulled the door open wide enough to see inside when I heard the tapping of light feet on stone coming up from behind me. I turned.

An older woman wrapped in a pink towel was walking so suddenly at me that I didn't break the motion of opening that back door. Without thinking, I stepped inside, looking back, holding the door open for her.

"Thank you, darling!" she exclaimed as though I had handed her a priceless jewel. She kept her eyes on me as we walked together into a tight hallway.

I kept my eyes ahead. I couldn't see anything as I adjusted to the sudden lack of light.

"You're a cute one!" the woman behind me suddenly decided.

I stopped and turned. "Thank you."

She stepped close, pointing at my nose, her long red nail scratching it twice. "I could give you a date!"

I didn't know if she meant that she was going to pass me on as a recommendation to a younger woman, or if she meant to pass me onto her.

"Uh... I'm sorry, I'm..." I flicked my eyes up at her. "Kinda gay."

"Ha!" the woman threw her head back. "Kind of gay, he says!" She looked in another direction as though laughing on with someone else. Then she looked back at me. "Change your mind and ask for Madam Delaney in room one-eighty-nine!"

Then she glided into the dark halls, disappearing before her laughter faded.

My eyes started to adjust.

The walls were maroon. The carpets were white... no, cream. The carpets were cream. Black molding bordered it from the walls. The ceiling had shallow ridges in ripple designs, which  were highlighted by shadows of the cone-shaped lights of frosted glass positioned high on the walls. Once in a while, I would pass, to my left or to my right, a dark and peaceful walnut door, each labeled with shining silver numbers. I could almost catch my eyes in them as I walked slowly past.

I followed the narrow hall until I came to the intersection of a much larger, much wider hall. A finely-dressed concierge spotted me immediately through a scattered handful of guests who seemed to know where they were going. I tensed up when he walked straight through them with his eyes locked on me. He came power-walking with full force until he stopped within a yard of me. His black cap almost fell off.

"Sir!" he said, readjusting the cap, looking up and down at my dirty clothes and backpack. "Has no one attended to you yet?"

"I..." had no idea what to say. "No?"

"Please forgive us, sir!" he said, extending his arm. "Let me take your bag— I'll bring it to our finest vacancy."

"Wait." I took a step back from the sharply-dressed concierge. "I could never afford a room in a place like this..."

It was a reaction. I knew right away I should have never said it, but what else could I have done, hand the man my fifteen-hundred-dollar-limit credit card and hope for the best? Maybe the man would understand if I just asked to see the place, if I could just sit down in the parlor and rest from the road. Just for five minutes. Just for two.

The concierge stared at me for at least ten seconds as I dreaded the repercussions of my honesty.

Then he started to laugh.

My heart sank. I started to feel angry.

Then the concierge said, "That's a good one, sir! Now please, your bag."

"I'm serious," I said. "I'm practically a drifter. I came in from the road for a place to sit." I looked at him. "Just for a minute."

The concierge was still smiling. "I'm afraid your jokes are lost on the staff, sir." He looked at me with unadulterated confidence. "Nobody walks into the Hotel Reputation if they can't afford to be here."

I shrugged. "I did."

The concierge's smile slipped into a skeptical, squinty smirk. "You know you can just tell me if you don't want me to take your bag..."

"I'll hang on to it," I said, adjusting the strap which was burrowing a trench in my shoulder. "Is there somewhere I can sit, and... maybe have a little snack?" Maybe that would be a slightly more economical splurge for myself.

Hanging onto his smile, the concierge pointed with a focused eye. "Make a right at the end of this hall. Take the bigger hall to the end and you'll find yourself on the mezzanine overlooking the dining hall."

I did as I was instructed. The hall I thought was big led into a hall that was even bigger. With even more people.

"Sir!" another concierge power-walked in my direction. "Has no one offered to take your bag?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

At the end of that larger hall with tall, golden columns was a mezzanine encompassing a great, ovular dining hall with three wooden tables stretching over a hundred feet long.

There were people at the tables but the tables weren't full. Most of them were in the center table, closer to one end, crowding around a man with a white suit, who led them all in thunderous laughter.

The room, in its enormity, barely seemed to move as I traced the mezzanine with my hand on the iron rail. I descended one of the two steps leading down to the dining hall. The table was filled with appetizers. A few dips and finger foods stood on display in silver bowls even on the far ends of the tables where very few were sitting.

No one seemed to mind as I filled one of the empty seats on that quieter, lonelier end.

I wondered, should I dare sample that glowing shrimp cocktail, or maybe just a single cube of cheese?

I reached slowly.

"You there!"

I snatched my hand back into my lap.

A big fat chef came and loomed over me. Even his fifty-pound moustache couldn't mask his smile. "What can I get for you, young man?"

"Oh, I... not much." My eyes gravitated toward the silver bowls in front of me. "In fact, if it's alright, I'll just enjoy some of these, uh, hors d'oeuvres."

"Nonsense!" said the chef with a sweet and powerful voice. "A chef knows starvation when he sees it! Please, name it and I'll have it set before you in no time!"

I shook my head. "I'm afraid I can't afford much... I'm—"

The chef burst in a laugh loud enough to call the attention of the people at the far end of the hundred-foot table. "Can't afford much!" he echoed. "A man in the Hotel Reputation!"

I lowered my head, hoping no one in sight would remember my face.

Then the chef came in close to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "How about a lobster! A big prehistoric beast that's falling off both ends of the table— just for you!"

I worried about what this was going to cost me, but I didn't want to offend the man, and it was only a meal... I tightened my lips and looked up at the big, nice man. "That sounds great, thank you."

When the chef had gone, I decided to go for the cheese rather than the shrimp. I struggled to keep it to just a few pieces to save my appetite. I chewed slowly, savoring the moment.

"Hey!" a tall guy around my age came over to me. He was wearing a blacker-than-black suit and tie.

"Hello." I chewed fast. "How are you?"

"I'm great!" he shook my hand. "You must be new here."

"Well... sort of." I hesitated. "...I've never been here before."

"Well, that's what 'new' is, isn't it?" he cocked his head toward the other end of the table. "Why don't you come join us?"

"Alright..." I grabbed a few more cubes of cheese and followed the guy to the end of the table, where the older man in the fine white suit continued to laugh with those around him. The seats in this area were all full except for the one belonging to the young man who brought me here. But they all seemed to notice a new face approaching. One of them, a middle-aged woman with curly blond hair, caught my eyes with a big smile and immediately rose from her seat. Before I could protest, her hand was on my back and she was ushering me with a fast barrage of welcoming words onto the chair she had surrendered. I sank into its upholstery.

"Oh, this is Mr. Trundle," said somebody else who I did not know, pointing at the man in white. "He's the hotel manager."

 The man in white was looking the short way down the table at me. "And where are you from, new guy?"

I kind of told the truth. "I'm from the big city." Then I kind of lied. "I'm a financier."

"How fanciful!" said the man in white with his pinky pointing out from a glass of sparkling champagne. "A high tower in a corner office, no doubt!"

"Very high." I didn't want to have to lie about myself for too much longer. "A great view... not a corner office though."

"So long as you're happy," said Mr. Trundle. "That's all that matters!"

"Sir," a concierge came up and stood behind Mr. Trundle. "I'm sorry for the delay; one of the chickens got out, feathers all over the place."

"Ha!" said the manager. "What a sight that must have been!" He scanned the people around him with a child-like smile. "Well, so long as everything is fine now."

"Quite fine, sir," said the humorless concierge. And then his eyes turned to me.

This concierge, who remained standing behind Mr. Trundle, was different from the others. He wore the same red lapel, but his cap was navy blue instead of white. His tassels were also navy blue instead of silver, and he wore a bright blue sash across his chest. He looked more aware, more knowing than the other staff. Even than most of the guests.

And he wouldn't stop looking at me. Even as the people around me and the manager started talking and laughing again. He looked at me with those knowing eyes, like he knew something the others did not.

Like he knew I didn't belong here.

I tried not to look at him. It was easy to maintain a flowing conversation with the people around me, who wanted to know more about who I was. Strangely, most of what they wanted to know were things I didn't have to lie about or even avoid discussing. For the first time in my life, I was having a good time describing myself to people, my hobbies and goals and the things that made me happy. But every thirty seconds or so, I would glance in the wrong direction and be reminded that the head concierge was still staring at me, still with that vexed and vexing look on his face.

Soon my lobster arrived on a bed of lettuce. I couldn't believe how big and red it was, steam from its shell climbing high over our heads.

"Your bag, sir?" came the voice of a young concierge from over my shoulder.

I turned and looked at his smiling face. I nodded. "Thank you." I took off my pack and the concierge carried it to God-knows-where.

I couldn't be sure, but I could have almost sworn that the head concierge snarled down on me from his place behind Mr. Trundle's right shoulder.

Hungry as I was, it would take me a week to finish that whole lobster. I offered to share it with the people around me and they were happy to help me eat it. Thankfully, the chef was not offended by this. In fact, he seemed pleased.

But the head concierge did not.

"So how do you get your jogging done in the big city?" asked the young man who first ushered me over. "Do you take to the busy sidewalks or do you hit the parks?"

"Uh, both," I said. "Depends on my mood. Usually the parks."

I took another look on my periphery. The head concierge was still looking at me.

"So..." I asked the young guy when the lobster was mangled down to its redder-than-red shell. "Where do you guys work out?"

It worked. The guy who had invited me to this lively end of the table then led me out of the dining hall and far away from the head concierge. He guided me down a big hall on the opposite side of the dining hall as I had entered. At the very end of that hall was an archway that opened up into an entire complex under a high rotunda. In the center was a bright blue pool. Surrounding the pool were steaming hot tubs among fountains and plants. In the back was a tennis court. Circling the great room was another low mezzanine filled with workout equipment. People were doing everything up there from jumping rope to deadlifting.

Aghast, I uttered, "This must be where the professional athletes come to train..."

"Only the lucky ones," my companion said with a smirk.

A beautiful young woman rose from the pool. She noticed us and smiled as she approached.

"Hey there!" she said.

"Hello to you too!" said my guide.

"Who's this?" she seemed to regard me with fascinated curiosity.

"New guy!" my friend pat me on the shoulder.

"Pleased to meet you, new guy!" she kept smiling into my eyes as she shook my hand.

Before I could respond, or in some way try to spark a wholesome conversation with this intimidatingly attractive woman, a shrill and hysterical laugh cut into my thoughts and echoed throughout the great room.

My attention shot to a familiar woman in the pool, who was drifting slowly on a floating lounge with a unicorn's head in the front of it.

"'Kinda gay,' he said!" She shouted as she floated on by. "Ha!"

The beautiful young woman in front of me just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I'm guessing she came on to you and you had to get creative?"

I shrugged. "Sort of, I guess. Yeah."

"That's Madam Delaney," said the younger woman. "She owns the hotel."

"Oh really?" I said, looking over at the eccentric older woman.

"You'll get used to her,"tThe younger swimmer smiled. Then, very subtly, she looked me up and down. "So, are you gonna come join us?"

"Hm?" I said. "Oh, I..." I looked down. "I just ate."

"Oh!" the young swimmer scoffed. "Don't you know that's just a myth!"

"I know, I..." I shrugged. "But I— I really don't belong here, I..."

The young swimmer's once interpretively-seductive look turned quizzical. "What do you mean, you don't belong here?"

I got a little nervous for a second. "I don't know..." I took another look around the grand rotunda. "I..."

"If you didn't belong here," she snapped me back to attention with a harsh gaze, "You wouldn't be here."

Before I even thought about how to respond, I found myself nodding. Then the words just followed. "Yeah." I looked back at her. "I think you might be right."

"Well then," she stepped back. "Go get your bathing suit!"

I turned to my guide, the guy our age. I muttered like whimpering puppy, "I don't have one."

Laughing a little, the taller man pat me on the arm. "They always keep a few pairs in the rooms."

I left the gym and power-walked like the concierges did, looking for one of them.

I should have been worried about how much this rabbit hole was going to cost me; I should have at least been slowed down by that worry.

But I wasn't.

I just wanted to get back to that pool. I just wanted to see what more this place had to offer. I just wanted to feel this welcome a little while longer.

Finally, a concierge startled me from around the corner. After a split-second of relief, I realized that it was not the concierge I wanted to find. In fact, it was the only concierge I didn't.

I froze in place, looking up at the head concierge, whose nametag read 'Mr. Valens.'

He looked down on me with unwelcoming eyes in shadowy sockets. With a calmness I'd only ever heard from men I hated, he said, "Come with me."

I felt nothing and I thought nothing as Mr. Valens lead me through the hotel. We walked until the people around us grew sparse, the halls around us quieter. I followed him with my head facing the cream carpet, until the place in which we stood was as quiet and as empty as I was suddenly feeling.

There was one door at the end of this back hall. It was walnut, like the others, but it was solitary in this part of the hotel. And it had no silver numbers, nor distinguishing marks of any kind.

Inside was a blue office. The carpet was a dark blue, the walls were a lighter blue. It had a welcoming atmosphere to it, considering the trouble I knew I was in, and the uncomfortable transition back to normalcy I knew I was in for.

The head concierge instructed me to sit. He sat across from me, behind the desk, sinking back into his chair, sighing. His disdainful expression toward me softened. His eyes narrowed.

"Who are you?" he said to me. "How did you come to find yourself here?"

I was beyond any attempt to lie at that point, even if I did expect I could pass a single lie through this man's vigilance, which I did not.

"I'm just a drifter," I sighed. "I was walking back from the city. I had a bad experience. I just wanted to..." I shook my head. "I don't know. I just wanted to see this place."

"A bad experience?" Now the face of Mr. Valens had gone neutral and completely unreadable. "Indulge me."

It stung me just to think about, and I couldn't begin to guess why he'd care. But if I was forthcoming, maybe he would be merciful. Just the same, I forced the explanation out of my mouth in as few words as possible. "I started a job. White collar, high class. In the end... they saw me as a joke."

I felt like a child as I feared Mr. Valens would force me to elaborate even further.

Instead, Mr. Valens said, "This too is a high class place, is it not?"

"I know..." I looked at him, then back down as I thought about how I was going to reconcile this contradiction. "I just..."

"You refused to be refused," said the head concierge.

"I... I guess so..." I nodded. "Yeah."

Mr. Valens' eyes lowered thoughtfully. "Now I understand."

"I didn't lie to anyone..." I must have sounded like a cowardly convict defending himself. "I tried to explain myself at first, but... no one wanted to hear about my financial situation."

"Of course they didn't." Mr. Valens' eyes closed on me as though testing me. I think he was smiling a little, but I didn't know why. "What sort of people do you take us for?"

His words seemed gentle in nature, but I was still annoyed at the situation. "Does there really have to be a whole march of shame every time some peasant finds his way in here?" I felt the anger rising in my voice, but I avoided eye contact. "Does this really never happen?"

Valens shook his head slowly. "No. It really doesn't."

"So just by being rich, you keep the riffraff out?" Then I looked straight at him, feeling my eyes constrain into defiance. "Well it didn't work on me. So maybe you should rethink your strategy."

Mr. Valens did not return my defiance with anger. In fact, he seemed amused. In a way I felt relieved by this, and in a way I felt angrier.

Valens leaned forward, his chair squeaking. He laced his fingers over a calendar on his desk. "How did you come to learn about the existence of the Hotel Reputation, sir?"

"What do you mean?" I said. "Everybody knows about the Hotel Reputation."

Valens tilted his head slightly. "Do they?"

I was sure the head concierge was mocking me in some way. But I played along. I guess I was curious to see what the punch line was.

I held my defiant gaze across the desk into his passive countenance and maintained, "the Hotel Reputation is a world-famous place."

"Really?" Mr. Valens opened a laptop on his desk and turned it to face me. The internet was up. "Show me."

With a furrow of my brow that was as suspicious as it was curious, I humored him. I typed 'Hotel Reputation' into the search engine. The results were sites regarding the reputations of hotels and tips for managing the reputations of hotels. I typed 'The Hotel Reputation' in quotes and still got nothing relating to the world-famous place that I had dreamed about all my life.

My eyes returned to Mr. Valens, whose expression had gone neutral again.

I took out my phone. Same search. Same result.

I looked at Valens with a smile. "Nice trick." I nodded. "Very fancy."

"Trick?" said Valens, his expression still neutral. "Then why won't you answer my question?"

"What question?"

"The question I asked you a moment ago: How did you come to learn about the existence of the Hotel Reputation?"

"I don't know..." My eyes fluttered around the room. "My friends. Family. We used to talk about this place all the time..."

"When?"

I felt all of my mind tighten as I wrung it out for any memory of ever having spoken to my friends, family, or to anyone about the Hotel Reputation. The images of it that I had seen, where was it that I saw that post card? What was the magazine where I had read about it? There were... so many... too many to count... too many to recall...

Then, like waking from a dream into the refreshment of reality, I realized that he was right. Every memory I had of so much as mentioning the Hotel Reputation...

...It was all in my dreams.

With helpless eyes, I looked up at Mr. Valens. "What is this place?"

Mr. Valens' face softened. He almost looked sympathetic. "In the Hotel Reputation, you are in the presence of people who denied the loneliness of the world."

I felt my joints get weak. "Is this heaven?"

Mr. Valens shook his head. "No. It is worldly. It is material. But it is different. It moves. It feels. I have no doubt a worldly man such as yourself had noticed a subtle peculiarity here. That is because the Hotel Reputation is a peculiar place. It is an uncertain place. It is a strange place. But it is a good place. It is an innocent place. But innocence like this can teach the world very little. Someone has to take a stand."

"I tried that..." I said, suddenly in tune with exactly what he was saying. "I tried it so many times."

"The hotel welcomed you," said Mr. Valens. "Perhaps it wanted to touch you, to experience you. Maybe the hotel would ask something of you, you who constantly refuse to be refused, you who do not allow yourself to be told where you do and do not belong."

Suddenly, I denied the attunement, and for a moment returned to defiance. "I just walked in here. This was an accident."

"Maybe you were an accident," said Mr. Valens with his neutral expression. "Maybe I was. Yet here we are, you and I, each bending the universe in his own little way."

I felt helpless again as my eyes returned to the eyes of Mr. Valens. "Can I stay?"

Mr. Valens' face remained neutral. "No."

"Why?"

"Because we cannot stay."

"Why can't I go with you?"

"Because where we're going, you do not belong."

I was crestfallen. Finally, I had found a place that accepted me, that welcomed me. A place where I didn't feel judged. A place where I felt wanted. Just because I existed. A place where I didn't have to work so hard to fit in. And with no explanation, I was being told, once again, that I do not belong.

"Look at me," said Mr. Valens.

I obeyed.

Mr. Valens was wearing emotion on his face. "The Hotel Reputation is also a place where people have given up— if we're going to be that black-and-white about it, which for our purposes is preferable. The people you've seen in this place have given up trying to make the world less lonely. But while you, just like they, deny the loneliness, you also deny the surrender. That is why you came here in the first place. And that is why you do not belong here."

In my heart and in my mind, I knew he was right. But still, I couldn't stop the tears blurring my vision and dropping onto my lap. "I don't wanna go."

"I know," said Mr. Valens, and I could hear the echoes of sadness from the depths of his throat. "There is no reason for you to want to go. But want doesn't always come before the act." He reached under his desk, and set my backpack in front of me. "You have a long journey a head of you."

I stared at the backpack for a long time. I tried to think about the hotel, to keep it in my memories. At the same time, I tried not to.

"It's time to go now, sir."

I took one last look at the head concierge, then I pulled my backpack off of the desk and put it on.

I kept my head to the floor as the quiet halls around me grew louder, more filled with people.

The doorman held the door open for me at the front entrance, and I stepped back out into the air, which made me feel like I was back in my own world again. The normal air, which was admittedly refreshing.

I walked a little faster, and felt a little better, as I kept walking.

But I kept looking back.

I took to the trail, and the Hotel Reputation grew smaller behind me, obscured by one passing tree, then by two, and then by the forest. And then I couldn't see it anymore.

The cars whisking by on the highway brought me fully into reality. I stepped from the forest back onto the shoulder, and I continued my walk.

When I came home, I didn't tell my parents I had failed. I told them I had learned. And I told them I had a plan for what to do with what I had learned.

Decades passed before I dared return, only after I had lived a much different life than I once thought I would.

The trail off the highway was overgrown, but still visible if you looked hard enough. The field it led to was also overgrown with tall, uneven brown grass and a few small trees.

The hotel was no longer there. Not a trace of it. Not even the thin street that ran before it. Not even the parting in the trees through which that thin street ran.

But the opening in the canopy was still above me, albeit smaller now, but enough to see the far blue and the odd cloud that passed by.

I looked up into it. I tried to imagine every of the infinite possible places that hotel could be as I stood there, wondering about it, missing it. I tried to put myself in all of those possibilities, to put myself where it was.

And I said, "Thank you."