[u][b]Harmon Rottlage[/b][/u] --- [i]Let’s begin at the beginning Let us revisit the past Like when the house lights start dimming Like silver screen photographs It makes a beautiful sound when nobody else is around It has a wonderful way of eating up entire days[/i] --- The Joslyn House Motel. Harmon has a home here. He does, doesn’t he? No… no, he definitely doesn’t. It’s such a nice home, to him. To others it looks absolutely terrible. Then again, everything looked terrible, wonderfully so. Sometimes it has… grey walls, sometimes they’re a very, very pale blue. There are other colors too but he can never make them out too well. Sometimes they tell him to go away, sometimes they yell nonsense at him. Sometimes they don’t pay him any attention at all. And sometimes, they back away from him with frightened and hateful looks on their faces. It’s because of his eyes. They’re not there. They never have been. They never will be. He trudges through the snow, past the rusty, half-hinged gates, into the parking lot. There’s only a few cars, most of them covered in snow, not having been used in some time. But why are there cars? No one drives here. Harmon never saw them drive, at least. They drove elsewhere, away from this place. The Motel is two stories tall, rooms dotting the exterior. Harmon lives inside one of them, he’s not sure which at the moment. Does he live here? Is he living at all? He has to be. He can still see. He passes by an old, bearded man huddling against the wall in his two coats and makes his way up the stairs. He almost slips on a step but, thankfully, he doesn’t trip and fall. He walks along the upper floor walkway and passes by a few doors. He stops at one and… stares at it for a moment. He presses his forehead against it, the metals in his crown scraping the surface of the wooden door ever so slightly. This isn’t his room. Harmon detaches himself from the door and continues walking. He lifts up his camera and looks at the painted numbers as they pass by. 8B… 9B… 10, the B had been weathered away over the years… 11B… is it 11B? Yes, yes, it is. He stares at the door for a moment before he reaches down and opens one of the large pockets in his cargo shorts. He sifts through the multitude of half and quarter-empty batteries, most of which are probably already depleted, and searches for his key. He has a key. Everyone has a key, to… someplace. He feels the jagged metal end and takes the key out of his pocket. He points his camera at it to make sure it’s the right key to the right room. It reads… 9B. He was wrong, his room is 9B. 9B. He takes a few steps back and finds himself in front of room 10B. He takes a few more steps back and he’s at his rightful doorstep. He slowly places his key in the lock and turns it, pushing the door inward. The room is the palest of blues this time. He forgets if that’s good or bad. He forgets why it matters seconds later. Harmon shuts the door behind him and locks it again, putting the key back in his pocket. He could have put it in one of the smaller pockets with less batteries in it so he doesn’t have to search around for them all the time. But he always forgets he can do that. Forgets. Forgets… The room is old. Older than Harmon. Much older. The floorboards are splintered and there are gaps everywhere. There used to be a carpet but it just disappeared one day. The walls are cracked and peeling and the wood and plaster behind them is visible in three different spots. There are maddened scrawls of gibberish and cryptic pictures everywhere, etched into the various surfaces over the years. There’s a fan up above missing two of its blades. The switch is broken so it doesn’t matter. The light bulb in it is still good, though. Sometimes. He pulls the beaded switch. A few seconds pass and nothing happens, but then the bulb slowly flickers to life. It’s dim but it’s serviceable. Harmon doesn’t know when he’ll have to change it again but he has… some, spares, lying around. There’s a bed with a spring mattress and no sheets, which he promptly tosses his blanket upon. There’s a nightstand with one of its drawers missing nearby. He sits on the mattress and opens the drawer. It’s full of batteries. He takes a moment to deposit the ones he has in his pocket into the drawer, coming closer and closer to filling it up again for the first time in a while. He’s been going through them so rapidly lately, it’s… worrying. He pays the thought no more of his mind and closes the drawer. Harmon stands up and walks towards the closet doors. There’s a tall cabinet drawer in the corner of the room that he doesn’t use much. There’s just a lot of random junk in it, mostly old papers, hypodermic needles, some books with weathered covers… Useless, all of it. Useless. He opens the closet doors and lays his handheld vision on things that are not so useless. It’s stacked with boxes of electronic equipment – wires, cameras, phones, portable radios, a video game console he never uses, some computer monitors and keyboards… there’s so much more but he doesn’t want to look at all of it. He’s only making sure it’s all still there. And it is. All of it. Making a low hum in his presence. He shuts the closet doors and turns toward the television sitting across from the room, on a small table. He stares at it for a moment before it flickers to life. Or, to a static screen. He walks over to the mattress and seats himself on the end, directly across from the television. With one hand he holds his camera so he can see. With the other he holds against his head, feeling the metals in his skull. He taps one with his index finger lightly, and the static turns to a random cooking broadcast. He doesn’t have a remote, but, he doesn’t need one. He taps his head a few more times, flipping through channels. He stops on a local news broadcast. [i]“-have confronted and apprehended the notorious bank robber known as Frost Beast…”[/i] Something happening nearby. Harmon ceases tapping his head and remains still, watching the broadcast intently. [i]”Erik Wall, also known as Frost Beast, was known for attacking banks all over the East Coast.”[/i] Is today Tuesday? No… no, it’s Saturday. Harmon always gets those two mixed up. And all the others as well. He keeps watching.