Room 209

The key card goes in, the light turns green and I swing open the door.
Falling back onto the bed, the crisp white linen crumples around me as I lie there in the darkness. I have no urgency to illuminate my surroundings, not yet. I remain there frozen in time. For now, this is right where I'm meant to be.
It's funny how, wherever one goes in the world, a hotel room will always be the same, the familiar in an unfamiliar city. Memories of a year living out of them come back to me in an instant. I relive every minute in glorious Technicolor as if watching a montage in a movie, accompanied by instrumental music. Laughter and tears resonate through my mind as they carry me across an ocean.
The sound of a door opening and closing somewhere down the corridor pulls me abruptly from my reverie just as the air conditioning unit clicks on and whirs into action.
My thoughts turn to the other guests above and below who are settling down for the evening in their rooms. What are they doing right this very minute? Watching trashy TV? Saying goodnight to a child on the phone? Brushing their teeth whilst feeling sick about their meeting tomorrow? The endless possibilities contained within the hotel grounds suddenly make the world a bigger place.
I roll over and reach into the darkness. Finding the button, I wake up my phone: 23:42. In a moment I will turn on my bedside lamp and get ready for bed, but not yet. I want to swim in this room for a little while longer.