Impending Disturbance

                The water breathed in and out along the rocky shore. There wasn’t a bird in sight. Driftwood and dunes formed a boundary between forces of nature and the ambitions of man. Crude shelters made by vacationing children unable to understand that rules exist for a reason spotted the landscape. Allen had spent the past thirteen summers watching their construction and each winter their inevitable, often violent, destruction. The parents present enough to stare blissfully out across the pacific, occasionally catching a glimpse as their son runs across the sand dragging a trunk three times his size. They smile at the enthusiasm failing to realize that futility and long-distance heart break will be waiting next year when he comes to find that everything he’s built has succumb to forces far beyond his control. The ocean has but one master and it hangs tranquil overhead casting a silver blue light across the breakers.

                Allen didn’t have to look up for this desk to know that the first storm of the fall was moving in. The salt smelled clean and cold in his nostrils. The door stood partially ajar from an old hinge he’d been meaning to have fixed all summer long but this was the first time he’d noticed it enough to be motivated. He thumbed through the greasy worn cards of his rolodex till he found the one for a locksmith and picked up the telephone. He was on a first name basis with the man and the exchanged the small pleasantries that are expected between business owners in a small town before any real business takes place. Through the glass he could see a stray cat playing with a piece of trash he would have guessed to be the cellophane from a cigarette pack. Ten minutes had passed before he hung up the telephone, removed his glasses and unintentionally started to rub his eyes.

                It was the first time in three months that more than half of the motels rooms were vacant. All the reservations for the evening had already checked in and he considered retiring himself early when the phone rang. He stared at it until the third ring before answering it. Whether it was business or personal, he always thought that it seemed desperate to answer the phone on the first ring. The cat had lost interest and was now rubbing the side of it’s body along the window as it walked down the cement sill.  He answered the phone with an urgency that made him sound out of breath and extremely important. The man on the other end was breathing equally as hard and at first he couldn’t tell if they were using the same abstract phone etiquette he was or if the man was genuinely struggling to breath. He identified himself as Thomas and asked if there was a room available tonight, though he wouldn’t be able to check in for another three hours. It was already past six and the posted office hours were only till seven but Allen agreed reluctantly. He had taken a difficult hit in the spring remodeling the rooms and wasn’t really in a place to turn down business despite the inconvenience. “Just knock on room 1, next door to the office when you arrive. I’ll have everything ready for you when you get here.”

                There wasn’t really anything for him to prepare. He made a point of keeping each room in rentable condition almost immediately following someone checking out and certainly before 5 pm. He pulled out a xerox of the customer information and vehicle registration sheet to have waiting on the front counter. Allen then hung the sign on the front door that read MANAGER ON DUTY – ROOM 101, and turned off all the lights except the small desk lamp with a green glass shade he kept on the front counter.