Ken Trimble #30 The sad hotel

Sadness was part of its history. The building was alive with ghosts. The walls, carpets, ceilings, everything spoke of this place as a nightmare of history, and yet it was refuge for the broken, the mad, and the dark crazed souls that gave this place heart. I was there too because I was a melancholic beast sent there to learn a lesson. When I entered I was scared and broken. I was a wounded old bird. This was my school of horror where I learnt how it felt to be destroyed, humbled, broken and remade into something new. It came at a cost. I had to let go of my arrogance, my refusal to surrender to something greater because I thought going to India was going to make me holy. At one point I found myself screaming on my knees calling God a lousy motherfucker because I thought I had ticked all the boxes. I mean I went to become a monk instead  I came back a shipwreck. The real spiritual journey began in that room while I was on my knees swearing at God. The night before I left I heard a saxophone , I was sure it was coming from inside the hotel. It was the saddest most beautiful sound I'd ever heard. It was that good it could have been the ghost of Coltrane.  I sat on the edge of my bed and wept till there were no tears to weep. In the morning I left for the mountains a week before Easter.