Free Zenith Hotel by Oscar Coop-Phane

his tender loving care that keeps them alive.They don’t grow, of course, but they are nourished by it. They drink Robert’s little attentions like their own sap, the blood that courses through their veins. It’s an image – Robert knows full well that they’re not people. That’s why he loves them, like an elderly spinster with her cats.
    Robert doesn’t despise people. Most of the time, he forgives them excessively. It’s just that he doesn’t know how to relate to them. He’s a bit gauche, he’s unable to interest people or make them laugh. So he sits on his wooden chair and waits patiently, as always.
    But what is he waiting for? He doesn’t know, it feels like a void to be plugged. Which stopper should he use? He’d have been extremely grateful if only someone had helped him, told him what to do. But there you go, no one had ever been there for him. Robert had built himself, like a slightly wobbly house. The foundations aren’t very stable, the roof’s falling in, he is less and less able to withstand the assaults of the wind and rain. One day, he’ll collapse. All those tiles crumbling will be like a rock fall. There’ll be nothing left but the bare rafters, intersecting beams that no longer support anything. A ruined Robert, his carcass naked like a common laboratory skeleton. Medical students will stick a cigar in his jaw, they’ll make him givethe two-fingered salute and arrange his pelvis in a suggestive posture. It’s understandable, it’s not a person they’ll be seeing, only a frame, an assembly of bones placed end to end, a human-sized jigsaw puzzle whose pieces have complicated Latin names that you have to learn if you want to pass your exams. He’ll give those cheeky students grief. He’ll be called Oscar and wear a bowler hat.
    He retains all that in his yellow foam.
    He has moved the little wooden chair over to the window. There’s a man on the other side of the street. He’s leaning against the railings in his shirtsleeves, smoking. He doesn’t really seem to be paying attention to what’s happening around him. He’s not interested in the goings-on of the street. He smokes. He’s thinking of something important. He scratches his head. Is his wife cheating on him? His mother dying? Have his shares taken a nose-dive ? It must be something of the sort, he looks very anxious.
    Robert watches the man at the same time as drinking in the life of the street. The stallholders shout the prices of vegetables and fish. Women walk about, leeks poking out of their shopping baskets. They’re getting in provisions, as people used to say during the war. When Robert thinks about it fleetingly, he’d quite like a war. Heimagines himself as a Resistance fighter, shooting at the enemy from high up in his apartment. Concealed behind the window, holding a rifle with telescopic sight. Unimaginable bravery defending his little trees. But it’s peacetime, he’s not exactly going to take pot shots at housewives with shopping caddies. So he watches them and tries to guess what they’ll be cooking for lunch. What can you make with leeks and a baguette?
    From time to time, he spots a bottle of red poking out of a basket. The sound of the cork popping before lunch. He crooks his finger and makes a popping sound in his cheek. Pop. Pop. Another bottle that’ll course through our veins. We need to forget for a while, we need to get drunk when we’ve got nothing better to do. It’s the fruit of our land that we’re drinking. Pop. The bottle neck clinks against the sides of the glasses. It can’t be bad, we say to your good health before drinking. We don’t say cirrhosis or alcoholism, no, we say to your good health, so come on, let’s have a drink to celebrate! After all, what’s the problem? We drown our sorrows where we please.

    The bustling street makes him restless. All thosehousewives out and about, all those cars, all those kids on scooters. Go out, that’s a good idea. Slip on a jacket,