The Old Hotel Lobby

He just sat there reading his paper; turning the pages very smoothly and naturally. He uncrossed his legs easily and crossed them in reverse adjusting his comfort. He re-read the third paragraph on page 9f several times before he moved on to the entertainment section.

She sat across from him idly shooting holes through his new paper. She crossed her ankles and took a sip of orange juice. She then reloaded and decided to try and punch out all the f's with her bullets. She took aim and fired. She examined her marksmanship carefully and closely. She missed and she fired again and again; finally extricating all the f's from the newspaper page in front of him.

Every time she raised the gun he took three pictures. Click. Click. Click. It was not clear to him what he was taking a picture of because after all he was stone blind. He listened intently for the crescendo of the steel teeth opening wide. He waited for the cock to click. Then snap, snap, snap. Then he heard the scuffle which foretold of the steel teeth closing around the gun again. It had repeated this loop all morning. He must have had a hundred pictures waiting to be developed.

I stood behind the information desk in the lobby, watching him take his pictures. Sometimes facing up and sometimes facing down but only slightly. So as instructed, I pushed the white button for room 691 every time I saw him take a picture. This signaled the buzzer to vibrate in the pocket of the man reading the newspaper. Who, then, would turn the page to signal to me that he had received my notification.