Holiday Hell

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Harry had planned the entire flight. He would read for half an hour. Sleep for half an hour. Listen to music for half an hour. Sleep for the last half hour. Wake up in paradise. It was all planned out perfectly. That was until Abigail's appearance had shaken him up and taken everything off course. He was unable to concentrate on his award winning book about the London Underground. He could not settle on one song. And most of all, he could not sleep. It was physically impossible for him to sleep at such a time in which his thoughts dominated every function of his brain. He was unable to shut his brain down and spend some time in limbo. He was lost in his own dimension of thoughts, transfixed in a world of pure and utter anxieties. How was he supposed to focus on anything else bar the fact that he had just faced complete humiliation from his ex-girlfriend? How was he not meant to have a panic attack? He did not cope well under pressure. Not at all.

The two hours flew by like a dream. The entire time, he was staring into space, into nothingness. He felt idiotic, he felt pathetic but he had no other choice. He had no idea how he was going to cope when he got off the plane. He wanted to remain in this permanent state of limbo for the rest of the trip. For the plane to turn around right now and send him home. For everything to return to how it was. Unfortunately, that wasn't how life worked and eventually he would have to man up and get himself up and off the plane. That was the only way.

The airport only fuelled his energetic worries. The constant hustle and bustle of coming and going. The lady at passport control asked how he was and he made something of a noise that was neither a word nor grunt. She eyed him carefully for what must have been a split second but for him it felt like an absolute eternity. A sensation of panic ran over him. Why did he have to be so stupid? Nobody was safe from thinking he was a complete weirdo. All of the people on the plane saw him as a harasser of women and how this woman thought he was a psycho too. This wasn't the direction he had intended his holiday to go in. He feared the type of person that they saw him as. He didn't want to be seen that way. In fact, he didn't want to be seen at all. His lifelong ambition was to just fade into the background of life. To be hidden, to be unnoticed, to blend into the crowd. The last thing he wanted was for thousands of eyes to be glaring at him, judging him for who they perceived him to be. He wasn't any of that. He was just Harry. Nothing special at all, nothing to draw any attention to.

After exiting the airport, he was faced with another huge dilemma. The coach ride to the hotel. It didn't help the fact that he realised he got on the wrong coach that was heading to a hotel of a similar name but in a very different direction. With utter shame misting his bright features, he scrambled off the coach and eventually found the appropriate one. This was seconds before it was about to drive away, resulting in him having to do a very undignified run in order to catch it in time. The driver nodded apologetically, completely understanding. However, the anxiety clouded Harry's judgement and he detected something of resentment behind those foreign dark eyes. He was sick of English people being late to things. Sick of people like him thinking they owned the place and running on whenever they liked. They did it on purpose, just to mess with them, he thought. No matter how many he apologised to the driver, Harry never felt like he did enough. He settled himself down on an empty seat on the coach. He could feel the fellow passenger’s eyes burning into him. They were all tutting behind their newspapers, laughing at his patheticness. Whispers surrounded the coach, of his stupidity, if nothing else. He was the talk of the coach for all the wrong reasons. These people latched onto anything like that, in order to feel so much better about themselves. That was the way of human nature. Bringing others down in order to feel better about themselves. It was hurtful, to say the least.

The coach ride felt like it lasted a millennium. Once they arrived at the hotel, Harry felt all of a sudden underwhelmed. It did not justify the three stars it had been given. There was nothing particularly note-worthy about it. In fact, it looked rather bare. When you walked in, there was just a reception. Nothing else. No fancy sign displaying its wonderful attributes. No waiting room with an aquarium full of the most exotically beautiful fish. Just a simple shack-like reception that looked like it had been manufactured in the 1800s. Splinters stuck out of its wood and its once bright and welcoming purple colour had faded into something of a muddy green.

A glance around told you all you needed to know. The pool was something that seemed like a joke. The size of a child's paddling pool, it was nothing to get excited over. A few pathetic deck chairs hung around, all of them clearly worn out and battered. The only benefit of the place was the glorious beating down sun, though there was a significant lack of protection from this with the lack of umbrellas for shade. He supposed it was either get burnt or stay inside. With his pasty skin, he knew SF 60 was the right way to go to avoid becoming a tomato. He was already feeling the heat. It had taken his breath away the second he stepped outside.

He approached the ran-down reception area with confidence scribbled poorly on my face. There was a woman stood behind the desk with lipstick painted a blood red that matched her long nails. Freckles were painted around her golden-brown skin. Her dark hair was full and luxurious, that fluffed as she bobbed her head. She was currently on the phone with somebody and gave him an apologetic smile as he waited. She giggled to whoever it was on the receiving end, sending a rush of appreciation and comfort within him. So far, everything had gone wrong but things seemed to be heading in the right direction from here. He was content with that.

She put the phone down with a polite farewell and gave Harry the brightest smile she had to offer. "Good morning, sir. Are you checking in?"

"Yes," he said, proud that he did not stammer whatsoever. It was something of an achievement for him. He felt pressured to continue: "Uh, good morning."

He cringed at his words. It was all going to perfectly well. Now, he had gone and screwed everything up. Why did he have to be so awkward? It would have done no harm to leave it at that. The gap was way too long, it became shoehorned in.

But he got a warm smile in return, brighter than the sun and so much more meaningful to him. "What's your name? How are you today?" she asked him, welcoming the conversation.

"Harry Winnepeg," he introduced himself. "What's yours?"

Oh my god, he couldn't believe he had just said that. He wanted nothing more than for the ground to give in under his feet and bury him alive.

In response, she pointed to her name tag. The word 'DAISY' was pasted on top of it. She began to type away on her keyboard, loud as anything.

"Daisy," he enunciated, as if it were the most magnificent word he had ever heard. "Really pretty name."

"Thank you," she smiled. He didn’t impress her, he knew that. The hotel reeked of those who were desperate to get along with the receptionist. He was a walking cliché and he resented it.

Daisy handed him over his keys. "Here are your keys. Room 104. Down the corridor, up the stairs, first door on your left. You'll find it easy."

Her accent stuck out to him like a sore thumb. There was no doubt that she was British but her voice was unique to him. "Thank you. Where are you from?" Too forward, way too forward. He really should have just kept his mouth shut from there on in. He groaned inwardly at himself.

"North West of England. Liverpool, home of music," she grinned.

He smiled at her. "I've always wanted to visit there. I'm a huge fan of the Beatles."

"Oh, who isn't?" She chuckled. "Best band in the history of ever, of course. Proper good, they are."

Some things he spoke to her didn't quite make sense but it was beautiful nonetheless.

He somehow got lost on the way to his room. How he managed to do that was a complete and utter mystery to him. He supposed that it was because he had become lost in his own thoughts. Or perhaps he wasn't listening to the directions she had given whatsoever, too distracted by her hair, her eyes, her speech...

He found the room soon after. It was pretty obvious to find when the number was written on his key and the door had a huge 104 written on it. He scolded himself for getting so confused easily. He opened the door and was rather underwhelmed by the sight. The room was patchy and bear. It stunk of old air freshener and had an underlying scent of fish. He coughed it out of his lungs and covered his nose. The bed was huge but was accompanied by a large stain of... something, on its mattress. The very sight of it made him want to vomit. There was a tiny table too with a chair that hung on only three legs. The walls were painted a muddy brown that wrinkled with age. There was nowhere in the room he was able to stand or sit and pretend there was nothing wrong with the place. Everything seemed to have a fault. Nothing about the place seemed to be in order. He considered going down to the reception to put forward a formal complaint, though he knew for a fact his anxiety would get the better of him. He could not maintain anger in front of others, plus he did not want to seem like a douche in front of Daisy. As far as first impressions went, he had already felt like an absolute i***t. He couldn't afford to screw up anymore. He would just have to suck it up and deal with it.

With a complete lack of options, he began to weigh up what he should do next. He could go visit Daisy again and ask her out on a date. It might take some convincing as she of course would insist that she has to remain professional, however it wouldn't take long to coerce her into having just one drink. That one drink would turn into another, then eight, then ten. They would laugh and drink and drink and laugh. Everything would be so easy.

Except, it wasn't. It simply was not in his anxious nature to go up to a girl and ask her on a date. It was not possible for him to form his thoughts into something of charm and flirtatiousness. He was bound by his mental illness, trapped into a world of not doing as he truly desired. If someone wanted to talk to him, they could, but if he wanted to talk to someone, there was no option. It wasn't his choice whatsoever. It was the way his brain functioned, the way his mind chose him to act. He was determined and driven by the thoughts of hatred that hung in the heads of those he met. So, instead, he chose to go down to the beach.