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Closed season. It’s the pits.
I run a small hotel. I used to run it with my wife but she left me because of her drinking.
She did not go far. I see her in the local bar, sometimes sitting alone hunched over a bottle, sometimes with her arm around a stranger.
It hurts seeing her like that, but there is nothing I can do.
Believe me, I tried.
Now all I can do is try and keep busy and not think.
Busy is easy during the summer.
This is a tourist town. We are surrounded by verdant forest, overlooked by awe-inspiring mountains. The stresses of the hustle and bustle of the city are eased away by the beauty and serenity that greets you in every direction you look.
There are thousands of visitors here over the summer and I am always fully booked and run off my feet.
Come autumn though and the flow of tourists slows to a trickle. The first bite of cold winds swirling through the streets encourages any left to pack up and leave.
Soon after the snows come and the road into town becomes impassable until next spring.
Nature rules here, as she once did across whole continents. We cannot argue, just make sure we are stocked up on essential supplies, our food and water, and beer and gasoline for the generators.
I have a generator around the side of the hotel. It’s relatively new, reliable. I finish thoroughly cleaning and checking it before I lock up the hotel for the winter.
The summer memory, I try and make the most of the transformed town.
On an early December day, I stand in the street outside my hotel just as it is going dark and listen to the near silence.
There are twenty of us who see out the winter and everyone else is indoors. There is no traffic on the road. The only sound I can hear is my generator purring efficiently and the birds settling down to nest for the night.
I try and savor the tranquillity while it lasts.
I breathe deep and take in the crisp clean air.
It’s in the air that there is the first inkling.
