I closed the hotel room door with a sigh and went through my usual routine: checking out the view from the window, unpacking, adjusting the air con, taking a long hot shower, raiding the bar, and finally lying down on the bed flicking distractedly through the TV channels and thinking about getting another job; Hilton had done it’s best with the room, but it was still largely indistinguishable from the hundred other such rooms I had lived in, apart however from one striking peculiarity: a dusty oil painting hanging on the wall above the TV.
I switched off the TV and got up, intrigued, gazing intently at the richly textured painting of a beautiful young woman in white muslin walking along a lonely, misty beach, against a distant backdrop of the sea and a pretty little cottage nestled in the dunes; and I felt myself strangely drawn in, captivated by the beauty of the setting and the graceful motion of the young woman.
And then, suddenly, my world went dark and for what seemed an age there was nothing … until light reappeared and she was there above me, an impish smile on her lips, extending her hand to help me up. I stood shaking, the roar of the ocean in my ears, struggling to comprehend this dreamlike state.
She continued to hold my hand and then showed me a little cameo on which was engraved a curious picture of what looked like my hotel room. I reached for it, but she just skipped away, laughing gaily, and threw the cameo into the surf before beckoning me to follow her.
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