Hostel Oddities

Well, the Portuguese have returned.

Woken by the 4am return of my roommates, I thought- as one’s night ends, another’s day begins.  I must think in terms of cliche’s while my brain warms up.  Oh well.  In 2 hours I’d be putting my suit on in the dark, fumbling with nerves.  In 4 hours I’d be checking into the competition.  And in 5 hours, I’d be arguing with judges.

I returned to my slumber, albeit briefly, because mid-dream, conscious Ben bombarded the unconscious one.  Wake up! You’ve slept through your alarm!  As it turns out, conscious Ben was lying.  An hour to go.  So the debate began: get up early or snooze some more.

But I wasn’t to make that decision.

The guy in the bunk next to me launched into a 15 minute scratch fest, scoring skin of a region I do not know.  I first thought the mother fucker was whacking it.  The bed’s response, however, wasn’t consistent with a jerk.  As it turns out, prolonged scratching of an undisclosed region is unsettling all the same.  The universe must have a real sense of timing because right when the clawing ceased, the full-bodied voice of a woman wafted into my room from the alley below, asking a cab-less driver if he could take her where she was going.

It was time to get out of bed, regardless of the clock.  I needed a shower.