You pull yourself up and stagger a few feet to reclaim a link with the outside world, reach out to that hidden break in the curtains and pull some folds aside. You just have to check if it’s still the same grand view you found you had, as privilege, right after checking in, unless you were assigned a room where you look out and see another wall, or a sorry glimpse of the outdoors through a spaghetti tangle of electric wires, especially common in the Third World.
But here and now, lo and behold, a tropical garden greets you, and you see part of a swimming pool a few floors below, there are bodies sunning, a few of them white and still pale, kids frolicking into view then disappearing with their imagined yelps, those voices now inaudible, the mute music of childhood play.
Through a glass p
