Canopy: A Stoku

I had gone looking for them in the hotel where they were staying. I had just arrived, but they were in their rooms. I went into the hotel with a desire for somewhere to sleep. I thought of big beds with clean white sheets. I went into the hotel lobby and came to an area where the tables were being laid out.

I took off my trousers and coat and hid them above on a tarpaulin canopy. Then I encountered one of the senior waiters who was moving the tables to their new placements. I asked him about it. He was keen to explain. He said there was a perfect geometry of table placement which brings optimum pleasure for the guests. Too close to one another and it irritates. Too far from one another and folks feel isolated. There is a magic geometry to the spacing of tables. He showed me. He placed one table at a distance from another, and asked me to observe the mood. It was quite fascinating. He had a point.

While he was speaking I noticed he was wearing something odd on his chest. It was furry. In fact it was the smooth face of a wolf. It projected outward from his chest. I asked him about it.

“What’s that?” I said.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a wolf.”

“No it’s not!” came a voice from behind me.

I turned and saw a boy and his mother. She was big and fat and had a big face.

“No it’s not,” said the boy again. “It’s more like a girl.”

I looked back at the headwaiter. I was surprised to see that he now had the brightly coloured face of a girl round his neck. The wolf on his chest had gone. What had happened to it? Then I wondered what he meant by having round his neck the face of a girl done in brightly coloured dots. It occurred to me that perhaps he was sexually ambiguous. I’m not sure why. It was a silly thought. After all he was the headwaiter, master of the magic spacing of tables. He turned back to his work. I went back the way I had come, and retrieved my trousers and jacket from their hiding place on the canopy. In the corridor beyond I began to wear my trousers, but the headwaiter had noticed me. He had come behind me and was observing me get dressed in the corridor.

When I had put on the jacket he came to me and asked what I thought I was doing.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“What are you playing at?”

I looked puzzled.

“I saw that,” he said, pointing at the canopy.

I tried to explain it all to him, but the other waiters had gathered. For a moment I thought he was going to throw me out of the hotel and ban me from ever being a guest. But somehow I got out an explanation. I had some friends staying there. I was hoping to find them. I needed to sleep, but I was fine now. They heard me out. I must have talked for a long time. I must have told them a very long story indeed. I got lost in my story and wandered down the many corridors of my own feverish invention. When I had finished time had altered. I had talked myself into a blue space. There was no one around. The corridor was empty. I went out to the lobby and waited for my friends to emerge from the world of sleep.