I close my eyes and I lie back down and I remember where I am.
Shit, breakfast.
I grab my T-shirt from the floor and run out the room.
Weird tasting tea.
Congealed eggs, rubbery sausages, shrivelled tomatoes and soggy toast.
Classic, budget hotel breakfast. The kind of hotel businessmen check into for somewhere cheap and clean.
I don’t remember getting back here last night. I do remember going to a club. What was the name?
Continuum.
A wanky name for a swanky place you would never catch me at in London.
No playing, there’s nothing that says ‘sad bastard’ more than going to a club on your own.
I need to go back to bed.
Someone is at my table. One of the hotel staff, arms folded. She’s dressed in a navy-blue skirt and a wrinkle-free white blouse, hair tied up in a bun. I look at her blankly.
What are you doing here? she says in English. American-tinted English, like most Taiwanese. Her face crumples. And what is that smell?
I look down at my trousers, then my food. Breakfast, I say.
She says, And how is it?
Not great, I say. You should tell management.
Her eyes become slits. You really don’t remember me, do you?
I push my eggs around. Refresh my memory?
A few weeks ago. We met at that bar with the floating lanterns, did karaoke, I invited you back to my place. We had sex.
We did? Was I good?
No.
Then what happened?
You stole from me, she says.
Okay. That took a weird turn. The way I see it, I now have two options.
One: tell this girl she’s got the wrong guy, gag my breakfast down and go sightseeing.
Or two: pretend I am this thief she thinks I am, tell her of course I remember her. Ethically questionable, but what the hell.
Of course I remember you, I say. I put on my charming smile and nudge her on the arm. What did I take again?
Do you remember my name? You were shouting it enough, she says, dusting off the spot on her arm where I touched her.
I say, I’m pretty bad at names.
She says, Enjoy your meal, sir.
I get to thinking about those Antarctic emperor penguins who live in minus-fifty-degree conditions, and how they would for sure enjoy the chill coming off this girl.
She pivots and walks back to her post at the front desk, each sharp click of her heels stabbing my poor, soft, squidgy brain.
T
WO
I wake up, alone.
My phone says 2:16 pm.
I look around the room properly for the first time. Small TV sat on a built-in desk. Mini-fridge under that. To my left, a tiny hallway and a shower room. To my right, a window with an armchair to the side.
Everything is white.
Maybe more grey, actually. On the walls, generic, oversaturated photographs of Taipei landmarks.
There’s the 101 building in the middle of a sunset.
