The Warsaw (experimental writing)

Preface: This story is a little different. I awoke from a strange dream, rushed to my computer, and tried to capture it, mood, images, "plot" and all. I'm not sure it makes sense, a psychologist might be better at answering that question. At any rate, here it is, an experiment in capturing the flotsam and jetsam of the subconscious.

The Warsaw

Strange, fun little restaurant. It was raining, and my old Italian cowboy hat was drooping around the brim, and though I had already eaten, I just had to step inside.

It was crowded. Not just with people, but the space before the cashier’s desk was tight, and the people seemed close in ways that had nothing to do with proximity.

The maitre de' asked me if I wished for a table, mentioning that today’s special was a very special Thai dish made from shell fish.

"That sounds delicious."

He was a large man, without seeming large, and he scooped me up in his arms, lifting me over the rails, and setting me at a table with an elderly couple. He took my hat and set it atop a globe of the constellations.

My glasses had gotten wet, and as I wiped them the couple smiled and nodded toward me. "An Italian cowboy. How perfect. I'm sure you are going to love this place. Everything they serve is wonderful."

The food was delicious, and the overly warm maitre d' was also the owner, a man with a sense of humor that bubbled and spread through his customers.

I was supposed to meet a friend for a movie. Someone I had known for a very long time. We had shared so many things that we were more like two halves of a single person than simply old school friends.

I stepped back into the rain, my overcoat flapping in the wet gusts, looking dramatic, and a little strange.

The Warsaw was an old hotel, a towering presence at the upper end of Broadway. It stood tall and stately, casting a dignified atmosphere over the smaller, newer buildings that surrounded it. I was to meet my friend, and his friend, there. The street was slick, and steep enough to make it too much work for casual walking. I walked with my face bent toward the sidewalk so that the hat brim sheltered my glasses from the light drizzle.

"Ah, there he is!"

I looked up, and there was my friend, looking so much like myself, and his friend, looking so much like a half remembered actor from my childhood. They were both in a very good mood.

"Come on," they cried. "Where have you been?"

They called out in laughing voices sharing some private joke that is too new for an old friend to understand.

"I'm coming."

I felt slow, old, and wanted to join in their carefree mood.

I felt wonderful. Perhaps it was the strange, friendly atmosphere of the restaurant. Perhaps it was the aftertaste of the tangy Thai food still lingering in my mouth. I felt as if the world was new and so was I.

I walked briskly, trying to be sure of my footing on the slick pavement as I followed them toward the old hotel and the movie theater within.

I was lagging behind as we strode up the street. I knew that I was not as tall as I had been moments before. And when I got in line behind them, they noticed as well.

My friend’s friend, with friendly candor, said in an amused voice that he had no idea that I was so short, and what took me so long? I smiled up at them, especially at my friend who had always been my height, but now stood a foot taller. He looked back at me, his beard as shiny black as mine had once been. I reached up to cover my smile and run my fingers through a beard that was now more salt than pepper.

"You can’t shake me as easy as that,” I joked. “Let’s go in."

I hung back a little, so this newest member of our group felt a little social pressure to pay for the tickets. I hung back a little to let the grandeur of The Warsaw sink in.

It is an old hotel. Made when elegance was an important thing, something to be crafted, and appreciated, from a time before money became dear, and was now returning to that time, trying to capitalize on a nostalgia we felt for things we never had.

The lobby was all greys and blues, the carpets and marble on the walls seemed to fit closely to a modern age when chrome and dark colors are sheik. But the decor changed as we moved past the theater. As we I swept up the stairs, the grand style of the old building wrapped itself around us. I sensed in the elegant lines of the staircase, felt rather than saw the large oil landscapes in ornate frames, I basked in the swirling deep oranges of the marble.

The landings held oval tables, offering cut vegetables and dips, furniture and treats that seemed a little out of place. There wasn't room for two to pass.

The mood was grand, as grand as the hotel.

I watched my friend, becoming comfortable with the strange resemblance we shared. I already knew what we were.

My friend and his friend had begun to see the similarity our faces shared.

My face held the lines of age, his was smooth, innocent. We were the same, yet a difference of time and experience lay within us, and it wrought startling changes to our bodies and thoughts. We were twins, clones, a single individual clove by three decades of mortal experience.

We looked the same because we were the same. The differences in height, in the color of our hair, the wrinkles of our face, came not from different backgrounds, different genetics. We were the same.

We fled the Warsaw, my friend and I. Staggering, rushing down the street away from the old hotel, glancing in horror behind us. I was not as fearful as my friend. This was all much newer to him than to myself. He was shorter now, as was I. I had also shrunk another six inches. I knew the process we were undergoing, but he was frightened. I had gotten used to the idea. True, this was a bizarre twist to what had already been happening, what I had come to be comfortable with.

For our new friend gained twice over all that we lost. He stalked behind us, a 12 foot tall figure staggering behind us on grotesquely long stilt-like legs, his long tan trench coat flapping around him, his floppy hat perched so far above, his friendly, innocent smile, as the rain slowly misted over us. We fled down the glistening sidewalks, a surreal trio. We led, he followed. We with the height we had not known since junior high school, and he with twice what we had lost.