Life isn't like the Movies
This evening finds me holed up in the Holiday Inn Express once againseveral hundred miles from home for a couple of nights. During the daytime I will be wrestling with ridiculous complexity in some computer system somewhere, and in the evenings I'll be kicking my heals in a faceless hotel filled with strangers.
I arrived at some time before 10pm this evening, and arrived at check-in alongside a pretty girl who was busy buying a bottle of wine from reception. I imagined she might be whiling away the evening in the bar area (which was deserted), and the thought briefly crossed my mind of dumping my bag, and heading down to have a drink. You never knowwe might have stuck up conversation, and become unlikely friends. I would have tipped her off about buying wine from the supermarket along the road for a third of the price, and we would have whiled away the evening talking about everything and nothing. Of course none of that happened. I got my room key, wandered to my room, and the wave of tiredness that had chased me on the 5 hour train journey hit me like a truck.
I did venture back downonly to get food and headache tablets from the previously mentioned supermarket. Stress headaches are no fun. While walking through the cold night air, I passed the almost deserted pizza restaurant on the corner, and noticed a single girl sitting in the corner, eating alone. I smiled to myself. I've been there many-a-time. She was probably here alone with work, and was stuck on her own, probably with a kindle on the table next to her meal.
On my way back I saw her again, and then passed another girl sat alone in the hotel lobby. We seem to be the only people around for miles. Lonely, hundreds of miles from home, rattling around the hotel and it's surrounding plaza like lost souls.
In the movies I would have introduced myself. We would have become unlikely friends. We would greet each other in passing in the hotel, and meet for drinks after work. But of course, life isn't like the movies.
Right on cue, Scarborough Fayre by Simon and Garfunkel has just come on the radio. Perfect soundtrack for daydreams about scenes that never happened.