Federico Iwasaki: The Damned Room

Federico Iwasaki

The Damned Room

I hadn’t booked a room because I am a regular customer, but the receptionist didn’t want to give me the last free room in the house. willy-nilly I was given the key and I was even offered to have a suite searched at another establishment from the many branches of the chain, but I was tired out and I got to the room without paying attention to their offerings.

The decoration was not the same as in the other rooms: the walls were crammed with crucifixes and the mirror wouldn’t even show my image back. As soon as I lay down in my bed I noticed the weird painting on the ceiling: an old and sickly image of Jesus Christ that was staring at me, the fresco looking frightened out of his mind. I slept with a feeling of being enshrouded.

A nail of a cold breeze bout woke me up, and by the side of my bed a lady made out of fog told me with eternal sadness and melancholy:

‘Why have you been so careless? Now you must remain here and take my place.’

From that night I have been waiting that somebody else arrives, to wake him or her up with my ice fingers, so that I will be able to sleep at last.