Soulless by Gabriel Curran
The last person leaves for hotel Babylonia. I guess I'm alone now to face the truth, and its smug list of foes, foibles and failures. Time took its time in coming for me. But now I'm here with just a candles solidarity glare, a flickering reminder, a vague recollection of hope, fading slowly into the cold shuddering shadows of night. Nothing ever lasts forever my friend, repeating like mantra in the gutters of my slumber hole. I am now an apprentice of loneliness, but its not loneliness that I'm really afraid of. No, I'm afraid of this hideously mundane wallpaper, stained with jet black discontent. All dirty and dowdy, frayed and beaten up. Old, insipid and kitsch with no spirit left in its withered creases. No, I'm afraid of my reflection becoming this room and this room becoming me. The smouldering carcass of my past is rotting beneath these floorboards. And, all I can do is watch this flirtatious flame dance my time away. Just deep and shallow inertia, flickering TV screens, drunken distant voices, and the occasional thud of a living being walking across the ceiling. My only fleeting conversation is with the scurrying little rodents, as they embark on their perilous missions to the cupboard and back. Even the ghosts have lost their spirits, and fled for a new haunt. Even Satan himself has better things to do then pay me a fucking visit. The abyss has become my most reliable and trusted companion. This realm of vapid distopia has a new tenant to nurture blind. Nestling into the stark darkness, forming comfort bonds with the fallen, hollow and soulless. These walls have me forever blind, forever inside away from my dreams. Forever, forever, forever.