I had a strange dream last night and, as usual, can only partially recall it:
Away on business, I arrive at the Travelodge, a budget chain-hotel, just after seven in the evening. I’m due to see a client the next day and the familiar mundane routine is about to commence – check-in, dinner, shower, film and bed.
Check-in is uneventful and the outcome, entry to a small unremarkable room. Out the window, there’s a car park around the hotel’s perimeter and then rows of housing beyond.
The TV’s on, I’ve transferred tomorrow’s clothes to a shelf and put some electronics on charge. I’ve sprawled on the bed and I’ve put my tablet and some surplus cash in the safe. I probably didn’t need to but I like stashing things in hotel safes. A quick glance back at a sparse orderly room and I leave to go find a restaurant. I’m driving round now for 40 minutes and the area seems to be half light-industrial estate and half new-build housing estate. Both are as architecturally bland as each other and then I notice the only place with any sign of activity was the hotel. In fact, the only person I’d seen was the receptionist. My signal is weak and I have no data so there’s no chance of using Google Maps to find somewhere open: My only option is to return to the hotel and enquire as to the nearest place to eat.
The company I work for awards a decent size allowance for meals but where colleagues would stay within budget, I would use it as a sort of subsidy toward a really great meal, fine dining. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of Beefeater meal deals with ridiculously over-sized ice-cream sundaes to push me over capacity and indeed, on this occassion, as the evening gets later, my dining criteria begins to extend to takeaways. I’m back at the reception and after a few minutes of calling for the receptionist, I conclude the reception must now be umanned. Eerily, there’s absolutely no sound from anywhere in the hotel.
I’d seen a town signposted out of the industrial estate toward the dual carriageway. I can’t remember its name. It didn’t sound like a big place, somewhere ordinary that you’d see signposted from a road but had never visited because simply nothing occcurs there, a name like Bicester. Now I don’t mean to be unfair on the residents of Bicester, indeed I have no idea where the place is, let alone am I qualified to make a judgement but nevertheless I think the name fits for the purposes of my dream. I’m back in the car, on the dual carriageway, on route to Bicester. It’s nine o’clock, I’m fed up of driving and I’m hungry now so anything that sells edible calories will do.
Well Bicester is a disappointment: Everywhere is closed, dimly lit and desolate with a notable absence of any activity, not just human. It’s started to drizzle as well, just to add to my sorrows. I drive around in search of a takeaway to no avail and then I stumble across another hotel identical to mine. It seems to again be the only building lit up for miles around, I still have no data, so I call in to see if their receptionist can help. They are not to be found either.
I’ve been here before, arriving in the evening, not managing to find somewhere to eat and going to sleep hungry. Usually I console myself with thoughts of fresh coffee and a large English breakfast in the morning but I’m in a Travelodge and their “breakfast to go” is more packagin than calories. Damn it. I thought these places are manned twenty-four hours. The receptionist must be in one of the corridors. I walk through the door to the guest rooms and although the layout is different to my hotel, the decor is exactly the same. I’m on the second floor and I almost walk past my room, 212. “What if?” I retrieve my keycard from my pocket.
I conclude that there’s no need to knock because everything is completely silent and I can just apologise if the keycard works and the room is occupied. Swipe, the green light blinks and I open the door to see an empty, unremarkable room, Identical to my own; the layout, the decor, even a small black suitcase tucked in the open wardrobe looks like mine. Wait, the laptop charging on the desk looks like mine. I step in to peak at the bedside table. This is my room! Everything in here is mine. What is going on! I couldn’t have circled back on myself, this is a different hotel, it’s a different town.
The safe. As I’m entering the code, I’m hoping that it doesn’t work but it does and my tablet and six twenty pound notes are there. I lock the safe, close the room door and head to reception. “Hello! Can soemone help please?” is my desparate demand at the reception. I repeat it. “Travelodge Bicester” is on the board, on the literature: I’ve definitely not circled back on myself. I’m hungry, feeling panicked but also tired. After heading back out to the car, it’s only moments before I’m back on that dual carriageway to go back to my hotel.
I realised that two things as I turned off the dual carriageway following the sign to the Travelodge. I neither the knew the name of the town I was staying in and potentially even more disturbingly, I’d gone the wrong way on the dual carriageway to continue on to, what would be, the third Travelodge. I gave a cursory “Hello?” at the reception before making a beeline for room 212. No debate, I swiped my keycard and opened the door to reveal a black suitcase in teh wardrobe, a laptop on a desk and as I stepped further in, confirmation that I was somehow indeed, back in my room. Amidst the confusion and lifeless desolation of the hotel and beyond, a suddenly feeling of dread crept over me.
I then woke up from my dream, somewhat relieved it was a dream and somewhat dismayed that I was in Travelodge with a client to visit due this morning.