ignored them, trying to weaponize the normal mutual invisibility pact that pertains at urinals so that they would literally disappear. There was no way they could have been in the same hall as me, no way they could have seen what just happened to me, but I still didnât want them looking at me, the pirate gnawing away at their livelihoods. I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink, pale though not red-faced as I had feared, skin wet, a drop of water clinging to my chin. Tired, maybe. The tube lights flickered and stutteredâan item on a contractorâs to-do list, one of the hundreds of glitches that infest new buildings. Plasma rolled in the tubes. Sometimes itâs new buildings that have ghosts, not old ones; new buildings are not yet obedient. New buildings are not yet ready for us. I wanted to be back in my room at the Way Inn, and I realized that it was already that time. Leaving now was no kind of retreat; it was what I always planned to do.
In something like a trance I left the MetaCenter, its fire-minded evacuation conduits directing me without fuss to the departure point for the shuttle buses. Between the canopied assembly area outside the conference center and the bus, there was the briefest moment of weather, something the planners of the site had made every effort to minimize but which still had to be momentarily sampled. It came as a shock after hours in the climate-controlled halls. The dead white sky was marbled with ugly gray, and in the coach the heater was running. Barely half a dozen other passengers accompanied me; the late-afternoon rush back to the hotels had yet to truly begin, and we got moving almost immediately. I sat slumping in my seat as my memories of what had just taken place flexed and froze. It was all malformed in my mind: instances running together with no clear impression of what had been said or what it meant. We passed through acres of empty car parks, like fields razed black after harvesting.
The sign for the Way Inn, a red neon roadside obelisk on an unplanted verge, was as welcome as the lights of a tavern on an ancient snow-covered mountainside. It was a breath of everywhere, offering the same uncomplicated rooms and bland carpet at similar rates in any one of hundreds of locations worldwide. On seeing it, I smiled, perhaps the first time I had smiled naturally all day. And then, as I tried to recall where I had stowed the keycard for my room, I realized that I had left my bag under the chair in the lecture hall. Nothing of great value was lostâmy keycard, wallet, mobile phone and other significant personal possessions were all in my pockets. But the leaflets, press releases and advertising materials I had gathered, the price cards and fact sheets, and the Meetex information pack with its maps and timetables, were all gone. Would they be found and moved to a lost property office? Unlikely. Fliers and brochures look like litter in the slightest change of light. A dayâs work thrown awayâthe bag had contained my pages of notes too. I would have to cover much of the same ground again tomorrow. This was frustrating, even infuriating, but somehow it managed to refresh me. The debilitating tangle that had hobbled my thoughts was cut straight through by the loss, which felt somehow auspiciousâa way of severing my connection to that catastrophe of a day and leaving it in the past. As I walked through the glass doors of the Way Inn, my mood was much restored.
The hotel lobby was almost empty. Flat-screens showed the news without sound. Behind their desk, the reception staff were chatting in lowered voices. Other than them and the handful of returning conference-goersâwho drifted, unspeaking, toward the lifts and stairsâthere were a couple of lone, suited men sitting in the blocky black leather-and-chrome armchairs, reading newspapers or studying laptops. No one sat at the Meetex registration tableâthe information packs, tote bags, lanyards
In something like a trance I left the MetaCenter, its fire-minded evacuation conduits directing me without fuss to the departure point for the shuttle buses. Between the canopied assembly area outside the conference center and the bus, there was the briefest moment of weather, something the planners of the site had made every effort to minimize but which still had to be momentarily sampled. It came as a shock after hours in the climate-controlled halls. The dead white sky was marbled with ugly gray, and in the coach the heater was running. Barely half a dozen other passengers accompanied me; the late-afternoon rush back to the hotels had yet to truly begin, and we got moving almost immediately. I sat slumping in my seat as my memories of what had just taken place flexed and froze. It was all malformed in my mind: instances running together with no clear impression of what had been said or what it meant. We passed through acres of empty car parks, like fields razed black after harvesting.
The sign for the Way Inn, a red neon roadside obelisk on an unplanted verge, was as welcome as the lights of a tavern on an ancient snow-covered mountainside. It was a breath of everywhere, offering the same uncomplicated rooms and bland carpet at similar rates in any one of hundreds of locations worldwide. On seeing it, I smiled, perhaps the first time I had smiled naturally all day. And then, as I tried to recall where I had stowed the keycard for my room, I realized that I had left my bag under the chair in the lecture hall. Nothing of great value was lostâmy keycard, wallet, mobile phone and other significant personal possessions were all in my pockets. But the leaflets, press releases and advertising materials I had gathered, the price cards and fact sheets, and the Meetex information pack with its maps and timetables, were all gone. Would they be found and moved to a lost property office? Unlikely. Fliers and brochures look like litter in the slightest change of light. A dayâs work thrown awayâthe bag had contained my pages of notes too. I would have to cover much of the same ground again tomorrow. This was frustrating, even infuriating, but somehow it managed to refresh me. The debilitating tangle that had hobbled my thoughts was cut straight through by the loss, which felt somehow auspiciousâa way of severing my connection to that catastrophe of a day and leaving it in the past. As I walked through the glass doors of the Way Inn, my mood was much restored.
The hotel lobby was almost empty. Flat-screens showed the news without sound. Behind their desk, the reception staff were chatting in lowered voices. Other than them and the handful of returning conference-goersâwho drifted, unspeaking, toward the lifts and stairsâthere were a couple of lone, suited men sitting in the blocky black leather-and-chrome armchairs, reading newspapers or studying laptops. No one sat at the Meetex registration tableâthe information packs, tote bags, lanyards
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