niceparabola

CHAPTER THREE Friday, September 18th (9:05am) I sit in the tweed-covered armchair, writing my comment on the please-write-comments-here notepad left on the room's desk. I set my filled-out paper on top of the bed's comforter and sling my backpack over my shoulder. I've grown oddly attached to this motel room in the past twelve hours, and feel the need to give it a formal goodbye. So I bend at the waist in an elaborate bow, my face close enough to the carpet to notice a mysterious green-brown stain worked deep into the shag's fibres. I straighten my back. Lesson one: motel carpets should be observed from a safe, sanitary distance at all time

CHAPTER TWO Still Thursday, September 17th (1:10am) This is a sad excuse for a pool, and the wooden sign hanging from the chainlink fence is a sad, if endearing, excuse for a security system. It proclaims, in hand-etched chicken scratch, that there is to be "No swiming After 9PM," and that "Violaderrs Will Be persecuted." As an afterthought, whoever wrote the sign also thought to include a non-urination clause: "And Don't pee in It either." I have a silent appreciation fest for the sign while floating on my back in the bean-shaped pool. I wonder about the person who made the sign. It was probably the motel owners. But who are these people,

"Maybe I'm a closet religious type," I say into the roto-dial phone, trying to ignore how much this mouthpiece smells like cigarettes and vomit. "Or maybe you have no faith and are doomed to eternal damnation," says Jenny, all telephone crackle. "Or maybe Jesus is my homeboy," I say. I'm being obnoxious. But I'm giddy, rolling around on the motel bed like a preteen girl calling in a radio request.   "Fuck off. Ugh. I swore again. You're a terrible influence on me, you know that? Anyway. You've been godless since conception. And don't refer to Jesus as your homeboy." "Why?" I ask. "Does it offend your Christian sensibility?" "It would if