The hotel was out of town, right on the country road where a car drove past every now and then. The facade was high, four stories, the parking lot empty, behind the property the forest began.
The cold shooed me into the warm, at the reception desk, behind which a receptionist was smiling. Small talk followed, then some common complaints about Corona, the banned private guests and the canceled business trips, yes, “The purpose of the trip is the Four Hills Tournament in Oberstdorf”. ID card over the counter, key card back, but one more thing, by the way: “You have the hotel to yourself tonight!” – “Uh, all alone?” – “Yes.” – “And you?” – “We’re gone at night because too few guests.” – “So all alone?” – “Yes.” – “Oh.”
The way to the room led into the south wing. Up two floors, then through a long corridor, down a creaky staircase and finally the room: 307. The door slammed shut and the night fell over the forest, the hotel and its only guest.
It was quiet. No sound. No, don’t think about this film, which is about a stay in an empty large hotel in a winter landscape, then about madness and such. The picture with Jack Nicholson’s devilish grimace and the ax in the door can somehow be suppressed, at least almost. To think of the film title, an English word that begins with S, or even to mumble it? Taboo.
If you want to survive alone on a dark, alien planet, you have two options. Either he crawls into the ground or he becomes familiar with the environment. The corridors were covered with cushioning carpets; roughly calculated, the house had 40 rooms. The elevator worked, but the stairs seemed more pleasant because they weren’t so narrow, and you could prepare yourself better for an attacker.
When the first morning woke up over a panorama with a lake and church tower, I left the empty house and drove to work in a good mood. We went back in the dark, still quite cheerful, but I shouldn’t have checked the front door. It didn’t close. It slammed shut and opened like a saloon door. The key card didn’t help either. That meant: I was alone, in a big dark house next to the forest, with an open entrance.
From now on, crawling was the order of the day. Relative security was possible up there in the room. Disturbed only by minor noises. Once I heard a wail in the shower, but it only came from the water hose. On entering the room something rattled, ah: the door, from the draft. Being alone in a large hotel sharpens the senses. The mood goes up and down. Once in the past few years, during the rough nights of the tour, an idiot really drummed his fists on the hotel room door. But this time nothing happened.
On the third night, suddenly there was a hum: a fly! In December! I have already killed many of their kind, and that is bad. But this fly was allowed to hum and hum. Because the two of us were the only survivors on the strange star over which the sun rose again the next morning and the Four Hills Tournament continued.
– .
