The year was possibly 1973 or ‘74. It hardly matters, though.
My lady friend and I were spending the night in a cheap motel in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We’d driven up from Austin to look at some land I was part owner of (supposedly), possibly to have one last look before I decided whether to sell my share or not. I think we would have spent the night before driving out to Yellowhammer Farm, as it was called, so on the night in question, all of this was in the air. It was a terrible motel. I remember finding toenail clippings in the bed, in fact, which ought to tell you something.
You might well imagine that I had a fitful sleep. What actually happened was that I found myself standing naked in the drizzle outside our motel room door at 4:00 a.m. I don’t remember how I knew what time it was, but I did. Everything was quiet and still. A dim light was on in the parking lot, and water dripped from the trees. I was standing on the cold, wet concrete step in my bare feet, outside the locked door, remember, wondering how to get back in…until I realized that I couldn’t have gotten out, either! I also knew that if I did somehow get back inside, I would see myself sleeping in the bed…
This was very disconcerting, much more so than merely being stranded naked in the dark outside the door. All I had to do was knock and wake my companion up to let me in, except that there were two of me, a fact I by no means wanted to confront. Knocking was out of the question, in other words: I think I knew it wouldn’t work, or that I wasn’t supposed to. I remember having all these thoughts while the impossible existed in a steady state, suspended in the paradox. There was no transition: in the morning, I woke up in my body, back in bed. The door was locked and chained, and everything was normal.
One fine night in Fayetteville, I slipped the bonds of earth. The only pity is, I didn’t look around.
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