Foreign Body
Corona was new in town.
On the first day of her visit she rested up in the hotel room. It had been a tedious flight. She asked for two extra towels, two extra bottles of shower gel.
Corona asked not to be disturbed.
On the second day, Corona ventured out to the corner store café. One large cappuccino please, she said, and coughed into the inside of her left elbow.
She noticed the others in line move away from her. There were whispers. Stares.
She thought, it’s hard being a foreign body these days.
She thought, if it were up to me, I’d move from one body to the next, making a home out of everybody.
But that wasn’t the purpose of her trip, she reminded herself.
She had come to get lost. She had come to be swallowed whole by loneliness. To move from one body to the next, always evolving, but never belonging.
She thought, even if I sit here in this café all day, even if no one looks at me, or nods in my direction, I will find myself divided, multiplied. On the glass I hold. On the spoon I stir. On the chair I tap. Objects will become animate under my touch. I will lose myself to any surface that will have me.
Next to the “we’re open” sign, one of the waiters hung up a new sign: “No sneezing. No rubbing your face.” He sighed a sigh of relief.
Corona went back to her hotel and asked for four more towels. Eight more bars of soap. Sixteen pillow slips. She asked not to be disturbed. She knew there would be more of her. Much more. Others who would need the room. Others who would need to shower.
The room was a single. She’d paid for one, although she contained myriads by now.
She felt bad for lying. She felt bad and coughed so loudly that the guest in the next room banged on the wall.
That night, she slept a feverish sleep.
On the third morning, she woke up to an incessant knocking on her door. Ma’am, please open. Ma’am, this is the concierge. Ma’am, we’ve received complaints. Ma’am.
She thought, if only the borders between us could come down. She thought, it is time to move on.
Corona decided to lose herself to the mattress. A deep inhale. A long exhale. The droplets in her breath brushed the sheet. She seeped into the fiber.
After twenty minutes the concierge used the master-key to enter the room.
He stepped into the dark room, switched on the light.
Ma’am?
No answer.
When he saw the bed, he let out a gasp. When he lifted the sheet, he sneezed a loud sneeze.