When you wake in the hotel’s high-backed brass-tacked chocolate leather wing chair, drool dripping down your chin to mar your once crisp cream-colored shirt, now wrinkled, that’s what you think––what you remember. You were late. You rub your stiffened neck, and a throbbing deadness shoots up the side of your spine. What time is it? How did you get here, in this lobby? How long have you been snoozing? Did you have one to many Mount Gay and tonics in the hotel bar? It wouldn’t be the first time.Tightness grips your chest. The tension lessens as you spot your modest suitcase sitting there by your feet, then releases completely as your hand works its way under your numb butt to find your wallet tucked safely in your back pocket.Why are you sleeping in this chair? you wonder. Don’t you have a room? You look past the bank of similar sleeping conventioneers to the hallway. Figures shuffle back and forth, flowing into each other like milk into coffee. Every fifth person looks like someone you know from the business.
