I was getting very used to going back to sleep. I hadn't slept as long, as quietly (without tumultuous dreams) as those last few days.
I knew it was just a vacation, but why did it feel so much more like home than my mailing address?
I thought a few more questions to myself, still not quite able to move yet. Sometimes my brain wakes before my body. Strange, paralyzed dream-like thought happen. It's when I am paralyzed this way that I have the most control of my dreams. I got the feeling back in my right side first. I got the rest of the feeling back in the form of a tentative wave of pain across my joints. It was like some kind of pain telegraph, reminding me where and who I was.
time to get up [ STOP ]
it is wednesday morning [ STOP ]
I swallowed the morning dryness from my mouth, now that I could move. My insides twisted a whimper out of me. Terrana was long awake already. I'd heard her alarm earlier. Because my body had become cooperatively mobile, I slithered over to nuzzle my nose at one of her legs. I mumbled that I really could get used to going back to sleep. Dangerous stuff!
I tried a waffle for breakfast. There was a collection of syrups next to the waffle maker. 'Sugar free syrup?' Well, okay, I'll bite. I got some orange marmalade, too, just in case it was terrible. It was.
Orange marmalade always reminded me of Uncle Mike, especially when he was stationed in the UK. I was always more interested in the places he was than Debbie had been, but none more than when he was stationed in Liverpool and lived with his girlfriend there. A typical navy guy, he had one in every port. He sent us candies and chocolates from there: a Wispa bar in a royal purple sleeve, a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar with a red squirrel on the wrapper, a group of chocolates in a mug set with "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" on it. It was surreal to see the things I hadn't heard before, the things that were just that little bit different. I'd let Debbie have the chocolate. It was really too sweet for me, even back then. It was very mild, though I didn't have quite the words to describe why I wasn't terribly find of it. I preferred the marmalade he sent. The foreign chocolate was too... soft-tasting. It was unsaturated and smooth, not the chocolate I was used to that was a bit more sour and had sharp twists and turns in the taste. Debbie didn't much care; it was candy and just eat it. There were a few different bars for each of us and we were meant to share the Turtles mugs. I traded my sister my share of the mug set if she'd give me the wrappers to the candy. What do you mean you threw them away?! After digging them out of the trash and carefully repairing the thoughtless damage to hers, I pressed the wrappers between the pages of my photo album. My cousin, Melissa, had made one for each of us. I'd kept every letter Uncle Mike sent us, especially from Liverpool. Why? The encyclopedias that had become my best friends through my childhood showed that Liverpool was just north of that place with Daddy's flags. I wanted to go there, one day. I wanted to see what Dad loved so much about it. Reading can only do so much.
All that flooded my brain in a few moments as I bit into my marmalade-laden waffle. At least it blocked out about a minute's worth of terrible news. Terrana and I shook our heads at the news. I was embarrassed for a mass of moments for the place where I was born, so I took it out on the compostable potato plates.
"Tea?"
"Tea!"
We both needed more chill time. I struggled to think of things to show her. Things that weren't closed or cost too much. My joints started to gnaw on themselves as I finished up some classwork. I needed to walk, I said. Neither of us wanted to go too far. Clouds were beginning to threaten a grand, almighty wet. I was so afraid I'd tired her. Hmm.
I flopped over on the bed. Pain arced from my knees to my hips. I decided it would probably be best to get my joints moving.
Balloons!
Oh, it was happening. I wondered who would have the cheapest bulk balloons. I hadn't known what I was walking to when I started, but as I moved, it got my brain turning. I could taste the balloon powder, already. I'd checked the Big Lots and A.C. Moore for them. By the time I'd come up empty the second time, I decided to go the rest of the three-quarter mile to the Walmart. As much as I dislike the idea of getting things from there, it's convenient and cheap and I was getting desperate.
I found them in the party section. Half off Fourth of July colors (labeled "Boy Mix") for some reason. I picked them over the "Princess Mix." Too much pink, really. I also picked up some long balloons for some balloon animals. I wondered if I still remembered the two-balloon wyvern. I know the poodle, though, but everyone 'a seen that.
I was full of giggles when I came back. I blew up a big red balloon first. Yes.
The next white balloon I blew had a hole in it already. Before she could warn me, it blew up in my face and I froze for possibly half a forever before giggling. I tried to teach Terrana how to tie them, but I kept getting them backwards trying to teach her with my other hand. She helped me blow up some and I tied them, then teased the Twitterverse for a while about look-how-many-balloons-we-have! I tied balloons until my index and middle fingers were raw on both hands. It only took 72 balloons. We poked them back and forth at each other between computer games. Glee.
It was afternoon before we were hungry again. In fact, it was nearly dinner time. We put the do not disturb door sign while we went out, so that the housekeeping staff wouldn't "clean" our balloons.
The Hibachi Grill and Sushi Buffet seemed like a great idea. I proceeded to eat too much entirely. Round Fluffle. I'd made Terrana a chopstick holder out of the wrapper. We played like quiet, silly fools. She dropped a chopstick on the floor making fun of the very inadequate instructions on the wrapper "for using chopstick". "Now you can pick up anything!" I was glad I had accidentally picked up too many! Sushi and rice noodles and green beans and hibachi happened for me. I picked up my sling bag each time, so when I picked my hibachi ingredients, a very young guy spied my imperial Skyrim keychain dangling from it. "Dragonborn?" he'd said.
"Oh yes. I have to make my nerd declaration, somehow, don't I?" I was being kind of loud, apparently. I didn't mean to be obnoxious, but afterward, Terrana told me she heard me all the way back at the table.
Ah well. I think he was trying to get some kind of Steam or online ID from me, but he wasn't getting any of that, certainly. My order was up, I put on extra Sriracha in sadly-appropriate nerd fashion, and winced when I realized I was fulfilling a stereotype.
I recognized a familiar and unpleasant scent that I hadn't much had to recognize since riding the train in early morning in spring: upon turning, I noticed the same homeless man I used to buy coffee for at the bus stop, back when I worked the center near Hopkins in the spring. I knew the scent well from having worked at the shelters and soup kitchens before. Definitely gangrene. It was an interesting and economic use of a morning's worth of panhandling, going to an all-you-can-eat place, I considered. I didn't want the scent to make either of us sick after having just eaten, though, so I gave him a respectful distance. Terrana told me later that she'd not detected it. The whole sentiment made me feel more inclined to spend the rest of the day in the hotel room.
So we did. It was full of games and feeding Terrana cookies. It was full of repeated piling of the balloons up on the bed and diving into them to the accompaniment of Terrana giggles. That sound made me happier than I remember being for quite a while.
We watched documentaries on science, including one on kissing, which was my favorite, of course. I forgot I was hurting or even hungry. Soon enough, quiet happiness and train-of-thought YouTube surfing gave way to night.
The only thing in walking distance for food things was the Qdoba at that time of night. I introduced Terrana to salsa verde, fluffed and chestpuffed when she declared that it was exactly what she wanted to have for a snack. I had fun with all the Spanish words. We talked about curry a bit. Why I didn't want to try it for the same reason burritos aren't burritos "back home".
You know, for a split second, I had forgotten that home wasn't that hotel room.