At dawn, she rises and fixes a basic breakfast in
the ground floor kitchenette. Scents of bacon and fried eggs waft
through the building and shifts change at the reception desk, the weary
loudly welcoming their alert replacements.
Madeleine takes note with gravity of the report submitted by the
outgoing crew and updates the incomers with its details. Her make-up
always fresh, her hair fluffy, her attire impeccable and stainless. Her
sexuality harnessed by a prim-looking business suit, her lipstick an
insinuated crimson.
Eli blinks at the sun and shields his eyes under a sinewy arm, flanked
by two thick and raven eyebrows.
"They should pass a law" - he argues to no one in particular - "People
ought to work by night and sleep throughout the day. Let the nocturnal
be diurnal and vice versa."
The same sentence every tortured awakening. His ostentatious misery
provokes contagious mirth in both of us. We go hysterical among the
crumpled sheets, beating the shrunken pillows with our fists (his
outsizing mine). At long last, Eli gets up and goes to shave and shower
in the nude.
I am not embarrassed. Straddling the minuscule bath tub, I mutter:
"We are penniless."
"Yes, I am aware of it" - sighs Eli and whips the sink with lathered
razor.
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