tonight i decided to cover the premature shimmers of silver appearing in my hairline. i’ve been playing with reds for a bit but now, I’m playing with plain old brown. that’s the fun of colour, it can change. i type this with my hair piled atop my head awaiting the 25 minute mark. i don’t find the process overly fun so to make my way through it i pretended i was on the lamb, on the run from the law, covering my identity with a $13.99 box of brown.
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it was the first motel i came across after driving 60 miles in pitch black, if only the moon were full i might have had a light to lead the way but instead i followed behind the dull glow of my headlights. i was tired, i was hungry, and the only radio station i could get was broadcasting a Patsy Klein marathon through static. I pulled into the gravel parking lot and parked under the flickering vacancy sign. I grabbed the cardboard box from the back seat which contained my new life inside of it. $800 in cash, a bottle of red nail polish, a deck of tarot cards, a flyer to a traveling carnival, and a box of hair dye. I walked through the door to the sound of a cow bell slamming against the dirty glass. An episode of I Love Lucy was watching the woman at the front desk as she slept with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. I excused myself as i woke her.
She gave me the key to 405, next to the ice machine. i made my way to the room peeking into the open curtains of fellow patrons. An old man sat on a chair flipping coins into a hat, a couple removed individual pieces of clothing upon sipping shots of tequila. Two kids jumped on the bed as their mother examined her image in the bathroom mirror, a man sat on the edge of his chair smelling a purple silk scarf and crying. I reached 405 and put the key in the lock. The smell of moth balls hit me as i opened the door, i looked around the room, the wood paneled walls, the orange and yellow flowered bedspread, the round table with a coffee mug stain engrained into it. I put my boxed life on the bed, took out the dye and walked into the linoleum washroom.
I didn’t regret how i got here, i was innocent after all, yet the idea of being guilty gave me a rush. The events which occurred 48 hours ago did, after-all, change my life. It was the push I needed, the inevitable escape that loomed deep inside. Now here I was becoming a different, altered version of me. This was one step of many more to come, applying the ammonia scented brunette to exist as someone else, someone new. No past.
I pulled the starched white sheets down and admired the crispness. Someone went to the trouble of making this bed perfect, for me, for the next body to crawl into it. How many people slept in this bed before me, what stories could it tell? Heartache, loss, firsts, lasts? i slid in still dripping slightly from my shower. I didn’t bother drying off completely, i loved the feel of a fresh bed against a clean damp body. I slowly drifted away into the pillows with thoughts of open roads and fields on the cusp of tomorrow. A new life.
