The Royal Renaissance

I am over a century old. One hundred and seven years, to be exact. When I was born, I was proudly named the Royal Renaissance Hotel. Visitors crossed the globe for the privilege of walking through my revolving golden doorways, where one of my luxurious suites would await. No hotel within 500 miles could claim to be my equal. My rooms were priced at a steep (at that time) $5.00 a night. Later, in my salad days, I could command over twenty times as much. Now all my rooms are free, to anyone with a crowbar and a little determination. But very few are willing to pay even that price.

The things I have seen within my walls, would singe your hair and curl your toes. I have seen birth, death, tragedy, heartbreak and joy. I have witnessed the first moments of innocent love, and the lustful embraces of illicit affairs. I have hosted political espionage, corporate takeovers, and dark plots between powerful men. Even bloody murder has soiled my carpet from time to time. But my beauty and dignity remained intact, that is until the local industry fell on hard times, and the flow of guests dried up.

The last few decades have not been kind to me. Over the years, taller, shinier buildings have grown up and eclipsed me. I no longer have a place in the skyline. A pathetic attempt to repackage me as a discount hotel chain in the seventies failed miserably. Without funds to restore my original grandeur, the new owners covered my cracked parkay floors with linoleum tile, my torn embroidered wallpaper with faux wood paneling, and my faded ceiling frescoes with fluorescent lighting. Not surprisingly, no one was willing to travel across the globe to gaze at linoleum tiles. So, they boarded me up and the city moved on without me. Now I’m just an old eyesore, a hollow shell of my former magnificence.

A building has wiring, plumbing, a beating heart, circulation. If you doubt that a building has life, you need only see how quickly our bodies decay when these bodily systems no longer function. Sadly, that is what has happened to me. Without maintenance, my body is slowly falling apart. But a building has a mind that endures the body’s decline. It has emotions, and changing moods. We feel proud, sad, defeated, these you can easily see in our posture. The spirits that have passed through my halls, and the few that still remain, have each left traces of themselves here, and from them I draw strength. That is why older buildings have character and personality, even intuition, while newly constructed ones seem cold and bland. I have barely a window that is unbroken, and most of my pipes have been stolen, but I still have a strong mind, and my memories.

After I was boarded up, I still had many visitors, although very few stayed the night. They call themselves spelunkers. As a nighttime hobby, they don head lights and protective gear to explore old, abandoned buildings like me. I always opened my doors for them. They came with blueprints and mental pictures of my former glory. They knew to peer above the hideous suspended ceiling tiles someone had installed, to see what was left of my peeling gold leaf. They almost always kicked a clear spot among piles of dust and broken wood to spy my marvelous marble flooring.

^^^

Not long ago, I had a memorable visitor who was not spelunking. In fact, she seemed not to notice me at all, so focused was she on her task. She arrived alone, in the middle of the night, with a large box balanced precariously on a wheeled luggage cart. She struggled with the heavy cart, through my hallways littered with debris, clattering down staircases, to the sub-basement. There, she tipped the box off the cart, so that it fell on the floor with a loud thud. She opened the box, and dragged out the body of a human male, apparently dead.

With great effort, she dumped the body in a large iron tub she found in a corner. In my old age, I have forgotten the tub’s original purpose, but she found a new one. She poured a liquid on the body, lit a match, and set it on fire. The heat was intense, the smell horrific. Even the woman had to cover her mouth and nose with disgust at her own deed. She watched, her face glowing in the light of the fire, until at last the fire had consumed all that it could. She covered the entire mess with garbage and spare parts she found throughout the room, and topped it off with a filthy tarp.

She folded her cart and began the ascent out of the basement. By this time, I was quite offended by her gall, defiling me with the burnt evidence of some horrible crime? I decided to exercise a little will.

The woman stumbled about in the darkness. I could sense she was unsure now of the way out. I added to her confusion, presenting her with closed door after dead end hallway as she circled and circled, her frustration turning to fear, then to exhaustion.

I never grew tired of that game. Finally, unable to continue, she stopped walking. She collapsed to her knees and let out a wail. She clasped her hands together, doubling over, sobbing from the depths of her soul. She looked a bit like she was praying, and maybe she was.

As I said, I do have a heart. I can understand sadness and remorse. Interested, I gently probed her mind. In her recent memory, I saw the dead man in his last moments, a massive specimen, his face a knot of fury, lunging towards her. She, backing away as far as she could, trapped in a corner. Reaching for a knife. I saw thoughts of her children, waiting for her to return. When she stood again, I helped her find her way through the maze until she ran out into the dark night, the same way she came in.

^^^

Since that woman, there have been no more visitors. Through the years, city officials teased me with walking tours and excited talk of redevelopment projects, but none ever materialized. In all the wrangling over my real estate, everyone suddenly became concerned about trespassing because of some legal nonsense, so security guards were posted around my perimeter to keep everyone out and no one in. I have been left alone with my memories.

I often fantasize about my demise. I wonder how high and wide the smoke will rise, when the demolition crews come. I have given up hope of redemption. I know the end is near. In my final days I have come to accept the end of immortality. I do not relish the thought of eternal decay in my lonesome misery. My only regret, is when the rubble has been cleared away and the new condominiums rise, that no one will remember that I once stood here… or that this was the place I died.