START
The wearing of sunglasses inside was a new thing. It happened like this: she was sitting on the sofa of her hotel room, the day before last, and the sun was setting. Dust floated in through the balcony doors and she sat there — stoned, with the alarm clock chiming in the other room — and took the sunglasses from her shirt pocket and put them on. They helped, so they stayed on.
Later that night, she did the interview panel in the sunglasses.
One of the other guests asked about them.
She nodded. That was her answer.
Her agent called. He asked what brand of glasses they were. She went to the mirror. ‘They’re black,’ she said. ‘Black with white writing on the side.’
The only problem with the sunglasses was that it made looking through the binoculars almost impossible, especially at night. The binoculars were also important. She decided the binoculars were a type of eyeglass and they became her only concession. She needed the sunglasses, but they couldn’t help her spy on the other hotel rooms. She needed both.
She needed to stay abreast of the white family across the street, with their children, one fat and one lean. She had to watch the young lovers who closed and opened their blinds. Then there were the elderly people and their television shows. And the sisters — they looked like sisters — who walked around their suite but never seemed to address each other. Finally, there were all the other single men and women. The singles always did the same thing. They stood out on their balconies, like her, and watched the city. The single people made her want to buy a rifle, and she imagined another glass circle then, the neat feel of the scope around her eye.
The rain stopped, and the wind started.
The ochre dust came back in.
She walked to the centre of the hotel room and let it drift around her. It felt like water, like she was moving. Apparently, she had everything she’d ever wanted. She was where she always secretly hoped to be. A success. But the dust kept coming. It dried in her mouth. She took a scarf from her handbag and tied it around her face like a bandit. There, protected at last, in glasses and scarf, she wondered if there was a way around it. There had to be some opportunity coming, some way to sneak past unnoticed.
END
— IAIN
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