The Hotel Called Dementia

It was on the very first morn of my departure that I found myself upon a strange and barren plain, an expanse where nature, in its fullest rawness, stood unchained. The world about me seemed to stretch without end, endless sand rolling in undulating waves beneath a sky so vast, so wide, it threatened to swallow me whole. Life, in its diverse manifestation, was there, all around, yet it spoke not in the voices I had come to know.

Call it a highway, if you must — a dark stretch of road that wound through the vast desert of the soul, the air sharp with the bite of the night wind. It coursed through my hair as though it sought to stir in me some hidden knowledge, some forgotten truth buried deep beneath the weight of my own melancholy. The scent of colitas, a heavy, intoxicating fragrance, ascended from the earth, thick as smoke from the fires of old, and it filled the air, pressing itself upon my senses like a relentless tide upon a weary ship.

In the distance, jagged rocks reared up like ancient sentinels. Around them, peculiar plants — alien, to my eyes — reached their limbs toward the oppressive sky, seeking water that would not come. Birds — strange raptors, if one could call them birds — fluttered briefly in the dry air, their wings like thin parchment flapping through the silence, their calls ringing faint in the distant vastness. And in the air, a perpetual hum echoed — an insect’s maddening song, as if the very land itself were alive with secrets and stories it refused to share.

But ahead — there, far off — there came a porch light, a flickering, wavering beacon like some distant star caught in the grip of an eternal tempest. And I, like a sailor lost at sea, could not tell whether it was guiding me or simply mocking my course. My head, heavy with a thousand thoughts and a thousand more burdens, grew wearier still; my vision dimmed. The tired heart of a man caught between the forces of the present and the past can bear no more. The night had come upon me, and I, too, must yield.

As I rode on, these things passed before me like ghosts of some long-forgotten world — sand, hills, the shimmer of something deeper in the distance. My steed, a humble beast, bore me silently, and it was with no particular excitement, but with a certain mechanical resolve, that I ventured further. My companion, this nameless horse, kept a steady pace, its hooves cutting through the heat as though we were two souls moving toward some uncertain reckoning.

I drew the reins of my mind and halted, standing at the threshold of something — something, I knew not what. And there, before me, stood a figure in the doorway, a woman — yes, a woman. She stood like a spectre framed in the darkened archway, her face illuminated by the soft glow of some unseen fire. The bell — the bell — the bell of the mission rang then, with a slow, mournful toll that reverberated through the hollows of my soul, as though it called to me, bidding me to enter.

It was then that I first encountered a creature — small, insignificant, yet strangely full of purpose. A fly, with its incessant buzz, circled near my ear, a reminder of the world’s persistent agitation. And overhead, the sky hung as empty and aloof as an unsolved mystery. Not a cloud in sight. The heat pressed down with a brutal intensity, as if the earth itself was a furnace. Yet amidst the drought and desiccation, there was a sound, a thrumming vibration, carried by the air itself. It was as though the very desert had a heartbeat, thumping softly beneath the dry, cracked earth.

And I, a weary wanderer in the wilderness of my thoughts, pondered deeply, “Is this a place of rest? A sanctuary of light? Or is it, as so many places before, a place where men lose their souls? Could it be heaven — or could it be hell?” The thought churned in me like a great sea storm — heaven? hell? Moose Jaw? — how fleeting is the line that divides them, how quickly they blend into one another.

I have traversed many a land in my time, but none so unforgiving, none so relentless, as the desert. And as I rode deeper into its grasp, the days passed with a languor I can scarcely describe. My skin, once fair, began to burn, the sun's cruel fingers tracing red across my back and face. Each day felt like a year, and every hour weighed heavily upon my brow.

She, the woman, with her strange and knowing smile, lit a single candle. The flame danced — yes, danced — in the dark, its brief flicker like a spark that might yet ignite the very soul of a man. She gestured to me, her hand like an omen, and I could not help but follow, for what else was there to do? The voices from within the corridor called then, soft and low, yet laden with the weight of ancient time. They whispered, and their words, like those of prophets long passed, seemed to echo through the marrow of my bones:

Welcome to the hotel called Dementia,

A place of great beauty (a place of great beauty),

A face beyond compare,

Plenty of room at the hotel called Dementia,

In any season (in any season),

You may find it here.

By the third day, I had come upon a riverbed — once alive, no doubt, with water’s clear passage, but now a mere reminder of what once was. I could imagine the river’s life, its swift current carving the earth, the joy of fish darting beneath its surface, the rush of water against stone. But now, only the dry bed remained, cracked and empty — a silent testament to a past that could never return. I could not help but feel the melancholy in its stillness, the sadness of time’s cruelty.

Her mind — her mind — it was twisted, bent like the iron of a shipwrecked hull. She bore the mark of the highborn, the wealthy, the rich in mind and in spirit. Her carriage, a gleaming Mercedes-Benz, stood parked as though to declare her dominion over all things material. She, too, was surrounded by others — the pretty boys, they were — gentlemen, no doubt, with smiles like polished stones, empty but for the sheen of their hollow eyes. They moved as shadows, flitting in and out of her grasp, as if they, too, were mere phantoms in the storm. And they danced — danced, yes — beneath the summer’s oppressive heat, their bodies slick with the sweat of hours spent in the chase of something unknowable. Some danced to remember, no doubt, to recall what was lost, while others, no doubt, danced to forget, to banish the ghosts that haunt the heart.

She called them friends.

But what is this, my friends? The desert is not merely barren, but in its way, it is a place of remembrance. For in the desert, one can remember his name — no distractions, no ceaseless hum of the world beyond. Here, one is free from the clamour of others, free to face himself without the interference of strangers or the burdens of the known world. The desert, devoid of life in the traditional sense, holds a peculiar solace, a freedom that the mind can embrace, for in the silence, the soul is no longer shackled.

I called out, then, to the brave Captain, the man who stood behind the bar of this strange place, a figure clothed in the fabric of time’s unravelled weave. “Bring me my wine,” I said, for I had no other wish. He, with a look that seemed as old as the desert, answered, “We have not tasted that spirit here since 1969.” 1969 — a year, a place, a time long past, but still it clung to the air like the scent of salt on the wind. How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves the porch light on?

The days dragged on, one bleeding into another, until after nine such days, I found myself dismounting, weary and parched, and set the horse loose upon the vastness of the sand. It was then that I saw it — the transformation. What had once been a dry, unyielding desert was now something else. The sand, it seemed, had given way to the deep, rolling swells of an ocean. My feet touched the ground as if to confirm it — sand, yes, but it was the same sand I had known before, only now it had been reshaped by an unseen hand.

The voices, still — how they lingered, far and near, in the darkness that stretched beyond my understanding. They came again, as if summoned from some netherworld:

Welcome to the hotel called Aphasia,

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place),

Such a fair and comely face,

They live, they live at the hotel called Aphasia,

What a pleasant surprise (what a pleasant surprise),

Bring ye your alibis.

I gazed about, seeing familiar shapes in new contexts: plants and birds, rocks and things. The desert and the sea — was it not the same? A strange illusion of life, always present yet forever hidden, its truest form lurking beneath the surface. The desert is like the ocean, I thought, for beneath its parched surface lies a life, concealed in the sand, waiting for the right time to emerge.

Mirrors, mirrors — there were mirrors everywhere — on the ceiling, on the walls — reflecting all things and yet nothing at all. The pink champagne upon the ice gleamed like the eyes of a man on the brink of madness, cold and cruel. She, the woman, spoke again, her voice a murmur — a whisper, a murmur that fell heavy upon the air: “We are but prisoners here,” she said, “bound by our own devices, shackled by the things we have made.”

And so, I journeyed on. The horse with no name and I rode onward, beneath the wide and endless sky, neither of us hurried, both of us seeking, though neither of us knew precisely what. The desert had given me its wisdom, such as it was, and in its vast silence, I had found the quiet of my own mind.

My mind.

And in the master’s chambers — ah, the chambers, the place of feasts — feasts that could not nourish, but only embolden the hunger. The knives — they were there, gleaming, sharp as the greed that thrummed beneath the skin of every man. Yet they could not kill the beast. No. The beast could not be slain, for the beast was born of the desires that we carried within us, and that, that could never die.

In the desert, there is no pain. No sorrow can find you here, for there is nothing to lose. And in such stillness, one can remember his name and know it true — unburdened by the weights of the world, unchained by its ceaseless noise. I have been through the desert, my friends, and I shall not forget the name I carry — nor the horse with no name, who carried me through the shifting sands and endless sky. I wear the chain I forged in life.

The last thing I remember was running — yes, running. I fled, seeking the door, the one door that might open and lead me back to the place I knew — back to the familiar, the known, the land where I could forget, if only for a moment. But the night man, the keeper of this strange place, sat in his corner, his gaze fixed upon me like a thing cast in stone, unmoving, unfathomable. He spoke, his words slow, deliberate, as though they had been shaped by the very stones of the earth itself. “Relax,” he said, “We are programmed to receive. You may check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

The heat was hot and the ground was dry and the air was full of sound.