The Motel signs boasts “Color TV.” The rooms fan out in two wings; outside of Room 4, a caked string mop stands propped against a statute of Santa in a cowboy hat, a pot of dead chrysanthemums at his feet. On the sidewalk in front of Room 12, a decapitated reindeer head lays nestled inside an Easter basket among faded strips of plastic grass. In the window of the Main Office, a Halloween spiderweb catches a few pieces of tinsel, blown about by the air conditioner. The fuel gauge in my car reads “helpless.” I pull in.
Elizabeth M. George is the author of Glass Teepee (Gallery of Readers Press, 2017), a collection of short fiction.