The door might have been green. I didn't record the colour at the time, didn't think to, but that's how it appears in my memory when I call it up. A green door. Scratch marks, loose flakes of paint at its right edge from my fingernails and a thin makeshift drain cover I found nearby. A sliding door, gliding easily back and forth along its little metal track, one way open, one way closed. It might have been green. I'm holding thirty rooms, people will be anxious to get out before the traffic gets heavy: flat Dublin voices in a hotel bar, midday tea to my midday stout.
Halfway down the far side, a keyhole set in a square of steel and a furrow for purchase. I obtained the key from a combination box on the wall. Advertised as an 'entire home'—a steal!—the reality was a futon, an unplugged fridge, a sink and an electric kettle: everything you need to sleep and heat water. The bathroom facilities were shared in a room down a concrete corridor. Squat toilet, shower with bung door, washer hooked up to nothing. Thematically unified by mould and cracked tiles. But I can unburden, see Osaka and worry later.
At some point I had locked the door from the inside. A clockwise turn unlocked it, loosed the latch. I slid open the door and stepped into the corridor, sliding the door closed behind me. I am alone now but for the woman tending the bar. No music, only traffic and gulls, soft lamplight. I carefully inserted the key and twisted my wrist but the lock didn't give. Funny. I tried to slide the door back open but it was firmly stuck in its place, as if it had already been locked. Passport, medication, clothes— Thinking it jammed, I made an effort to force the thing with my fingers and a drain cover I initially took for a doormat until I saw, upon lifting it, that it covered a man-sized drain at the foot of another guest's door. No avail.
I took a train to a phone box. Blue, I think. Emerged unsuper, flustered. Finally a response: this has never happened with previous guests. How exactly does imparting that piece of information help matters? My host resolved the issue, at cost, and explained that the latch mechanism must have stuck shut as I had failed to fully unlock it before closing the door. Give me five stars, he joked, seriously. You can have four, you fucker, and a mixed review. His public review of me is here replicated in its entirely: "He caused a trouble but it was ok".