The Rooms - Final Edit

Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing.

Roger Samson, for example, though nominally on a city bus, was in fact located in a small windowless home office, to which the door was quite soundproof. His doctor had recommended that he get hearing aids, but Roger remembered the days of parchment-thin walls, and to these he was not anxious to return.

Thus Gloria Wibble had been quite unsuccessful in trying to get his attention.

"Excuse me, sir, would you be able to move your backpack? There aren't any other seats."

Roger, on the bus, bristled and opened his eyes; Roger, in the office, removed his headphones and tore himself away from the game of Flight Simulator in which he was perpetually engaged. There had been a knock on the door, and it was growing quite insistent.

"Oh, here, yes, of course," he mumbled, opening the door to his clean quiet office by means of the left backpack strap. He sat the lumpy object down at his feet and once again the door was closed (he saw that his plane had crashed, but no matter; Flight Simulator, unlike the extra-office aspects of his life, always provided him with the option to start over).

Having seen Roger securely back into the recess of his office, Gloria sat down beside him and retreated to her own inner sanctuary-- except hers was less a sanctuary and more a manifestation of her inner disquiet. It was the roulette gallery of a casino, which would not have been surprising to anyone else, had they been allowed inside-- Gloria's eyes resembled nothing if not giant roulette wheels: there always seemed to be something spinning inside them. Gloria was currently playing her hand at the gumbo-recipe game. Where on earth had she put it? She needed it for the potluck tonight, and she was going for broke. At stake: her reputation as an appreciable or even adequate housewife (gumbo was the only decent thing she knew how to make). All the numbers on the wheel (fifteen spaces in all) were backgrounded by pictures of places-- the glove compartment of her car, her recipe rolodex (too risky a bet), her copy of Scrapbooking for Dummies, her son Robbie's lunchbox, etc. Where had she last seen it? She wracked her brain and fidgeted, aggravating the testy croupier. Finally she placed her bet on 11, or "the kitchen counter behind the dishwashing detergent," and he spun the wheel. It revolved for several minutes and the numbers blurred before her-- "Make it stop!" she yelled at the croupier-- but it wouldn't, and she exited the casino in a daze, determined to return when she got home. By then it surely would have landed somewhere, she thought, and only then would she be able to collect her winnings... or not.

Gloria moved her foot, and on the other side of her little Andrew Grier was booted out of a tipi-- he was young, and still allowed to migrate between rooms, having yet to find the one that belonged best to him. Back on the bus, seated next to the lady with the crazy eyes, he sensed in the bliss of childhood that his only challenge was to find another room to occupy. In his sensory travels he came upon a room with a solid, metal door, which the scent of the crazy-eyed lady had allowed him to discover: she smelled like wilted flowers, like the ones in the vases his mother had left out for too long. In the room, which was sterile and filled with bubbling test tubes, Andrew found a lab coat, goggles, and notebook. It seemed that the mad scientist who was working here had stepped out for lunch. No matter; Andrew could continue his work for him until he returned. In the notebook Andrew found a secret: for every person in the world, there was a perfume that would cause him (or her) to respond in a certain way, to act precisely as the mad scientist wanted him to. By brewing this set of perfect perfumes, the mad scientist could control every person's every action, and thereby RULE THE WORLD! Even Andrew had to cackle at the genius of this evil plan, for perhaps, if he found the next few perfumes, the mad scientist might let him rule the world sometimes too, at least  on weekends.

Clearly, the lady with the crazy eyes had already been taken care of.

Next on the list was the bus occupant across from Andrew, a scrawny old man with tufts of ear hair and a snuffling snore. Andrew scoffed. Easy-peasy. The scientist had carefully noted that this man could be driven into a state of frenzy by one thing: peanut brittle. All Andrew had to do was mix up some crushed brittle particles with a few essential oils and voilà!-- the malevolent mixture itself was born in a fountain of bubbles, in a vial that rapidly cycled through colors of the rainbow, finally culminating in an irresistible peanutty tannish-orange. Andrew smiled as the man jolted awake (outside the scientist's chamber, the bus had hit a bump, but Andrew knew the truth).

Scrawny Alexander Wasserman looked about in surprise. Peanut brittle? In the blankness of his sleep, he thought he had smelled it-- he could almost taste it, or perhaps it was just the remnants of the cashews he had eaten this morning. Either way, he could swear he had caught a whiff of those tantalizing blocks of legume-y goodness-- did someone on the bus have a bag? More importantly, would the person be willing to share? He looked to his left, to no avail. He looked to his right, and--

Transformation.

In that moment Alexander Wasserman discovered that Sleeping Beauty did not live in a castle and her bed was not obstructed by a thicket of thorns. She lay dreaming right next to him, and the only obstruction was his own self-consciousness, which manifested itself in a blush.

She had a copy of "1000 Nutty Confections" in her hand, and her head was covered with perfectly-set, unicorn-white curls. He began to sweat. Who was he to wake her? What if she grumbled, what if she found him rude or unsavory? Even worse, what if she didn't think he was handsome? What if he tried to win her and flat-out failed? Perhaps she inhabited a castle surrounded by thorns after all.

Time passed slowly as he dithered, making Alexander even more conscious of the fact that he did not have a mental room, at least not at the moment. He had lost the key to his room long ago, after his son had been killed in a war. The bug-catching meadow in which he had spent his spare moments had scorched up and died, now that its other occupant was so far removed and so painful to visit (the sight of the boy with the missing front tooth and the miniature net now brought him to tears). From then on, Alex had spent his downtime in a state of painful agitation, forever stuck in the literal present. Only sleep, and peanut brittle, could bring him relief.

Soon, however, it began to dawn on Alex that the time had come for him to seek a new room. He had grown tired of the perpetual sadness; it was exhausting, so exhausting not to have a place to be content. He felt that had been searching for this room for a long time, and here was the opportunity, in front of him: he must find the chamber in which the sleeping princess lay.

But the bus was approaching his stop; there were only two stops to go between Hartford Street and Brooklane, the location of his apartment. Time was running out. What to say, oh what to say? How to wake her so that she would at once recognize him as smart, funny, and kind, her true love meant to be? And what if she was married?-- but he didn't see a ring. He urged himself: think, Alex, think!

The driver announced: "Talbot Street, everyone for Talbot Street," and the bus inched to a halt.

In his contemplation of her somnolent tranquility, Alex noticed something about his love which caused him alarm. At her feet was a tote bag printed with the words "Talbot Street Market," and she was carrying a recipe book. Perhaps she had meant to go shopping, and what if she should miss her stop? In a great fit of valiant anxiety, he slashed at the final vestiges of thicket, overcoming his inhibitions. He reached for the key to the princess's chamber, touching her left hand: what a beautifully soft and graceful left hand it was.

The chamber door opened with the princess's eyes.

"Excuse me, are you getting off at Talbot Street? I saw your bag, and thought this might be your stop."

Her features softened, blue eyes aglow, as she caught the first sight of her prince.

"Thank you, sir, I was just on my way to the market to get some sugar, because I'm making peanut brittle tonight. You see, my grandchildren are coming over tomorrow, and--"
The doors of the bus began to close.

"Why, it seems I've missed my stop after all," she said, and her eyes misted over with disappointment (or perhaps Alex was only imagining such tender sensitivity, as he sat in the chamber, by the side of her bed). He had not removed his hand from hers.

"It's no matter. What do you say we get off at the next stop, and I escort you to the market?"

"That would be lovely." She smiled and looked modestly at her dainty white sneakers (in the castle, she sat up and removed the brocade quilt).

Thus Alex Wasserman found his next dwelling place, which was almost as lovely as the room he would physically occupy that night, a kitchen brimming with the smell of peanut brittle. Of course, by that time, Andrew Grier had moved on to concoct his next scent, as the mad scientist had never returned, and his abandoned labor became Andrew's lifelong obsession-- he was never the same afterward. Gloria Wibble had returned home, then to her casino, and was collecting winnings in the form of compliments on the now-famous gumbo. And Roger Samson? As one might imagine, Roger Samson had gotten nowhere at all, figuratively, but that was just fine with him. He had come full circle, at one with himself: he sat in his home office, playing Flight Simulator.