Rockstars in a Hotel
See them from the bar. Rockstars walking through the lobby, actually carrying instruments, long jackets, long hair, brown blond black, bright red hats, yellow, black boots, short sleeves and skinny wrists spangled with bracelets, walking as if not really walking, but stomping on the walls to the right and left, as if testing the give of the floor, the straightness of the woman by the counter, who watches perfectly poised while they wash by through their tunnel of grey, jangle and pileup of taxi cabs outside, proliferating blue and grey of buildings, street-side trash bins, choppers in the pale sky, universe of spirits gathered around them like a mantle of voices pushing in, anticipating.
In their wake, the sidewalks half-shimmer and return to grey, the canyons of buildings seem blown to mist and the words in the magazine articles become solid as wood blocks that you can hold to the magical tremulations of song.
The walls bend in and out, a plush yellow, haloed lights ensconced on them, antique standing tables with fresh flowers; such an exuberance of color there, almost brazen tenderness of blossom; up the elevator with them, to the room, carpeted in the hum of words and song as though there were no floor beneath, just the voices of water, the floors and endless floors Gods walk on, and running hands along the windowsill, the sash, the curtains, hum of ventilation, outside the wild and roaring streets, for a minute the window pane becoming so clear, so solid, it seems he has been able to grasp, to pick it up, to put it into music.
* Matthew Zanoni Müller was born
in Bochum, Germany and grew up in Eugene, Oregon and Upstate New York.
He has a BA from Emerson College and an MFA from Warren Wilson College.
This story comes from a collection of short prose he is putting together.
www.matthewzanonimuller.com
