Hi, my name is Wayne Jones. Welcome to Lies I Tell My Kids, a fictional memoir by a truthful man with no children. This is episode 4, “Thin Light Streaming In.”

It’s comfortable on the bed of this motel just inside the city limits. The Notting Inn, locally owned and not a chain, the name a tribute to the owner’s birthplace “across the pond,” as he invariably puts it when he’s working the front desk, in Nottingham. A lot of people call it the Naughty Inn due to the number of married men who often have trysts here with sex workers during their unusually long lunch hours. But those of us who just want a clean and quiet place to stay, and reasonably priced when you don’t have to factor in the cost of adultery, also appreciate it.

The room is dark enough to envelope me but not so dark that I would have to fumble my way along the walls in order to make it to the bathroom. The only source of incoming sunshine at this time of day, around six in the evening, is the bullet of light that comes in through the damaged shade. One hole, at the top-left corner of the shade, hitting its final target at the carpet just in front of the television. I think for a moment that it’s a spotlight awaiting the entrance onto the stage of the host to guide me through the cornucopia of entertainment that the idiot box can provide. I get up immediately, go to the bathroom for a Band-Aid, and affix it over the hole. Next time I will get my usual room.

Sadee thinks I am at a job fair for administrative staff. Giving out résumés on key drives. Being given practice interviews. Hoping to strike up a conversation with someone with some influence in the hierarchy who turns out to like me, inputs my number right into his cellphone, and says he’ll be back in touch early next week with some possibilities. Sadee understands and even encourages me in these outings, mostly because I am careful not to do it too often. The kids are confused though. It can be hard to explain to them exactly what I am purportedly up to.

“But is the fair part for kids to wait and go on rides and all that while you’re doing work stuff?”

The poor bastards, they still love me and like my company. I try to explain it all better, but the extra description doesn’t help and they don’t know why they can’t come with me. The truth is of course that I am kilometres away from any kind of fair, no Tilt-A-Whirl, no rows of pamphlet-laden booths.

The sun has set now and the Band-Aid is an opaque mark on a shade that still shows that light of dusk outside. It’s that perfect light where all objects look lovely, all objects have that generous tinge about them, harsh edges smoothed off and the contrasts between colours starting to fade to dark. I never do much during these little dishonest escapades. I lie on the bed and look at the ceiling and that inevitably leads to napping. I don’t ratatat my mind with inane TV but on the other hand I don’t have the capacity to watch anything substantive either. The inevitable darkness and the constant silence and lack of interruption are just perfect. It feels like the universe is giving me meditative peace.

I’m just on the verge of falling asleep for the night when the phone rings. It’s Sadee, I see, as the bright intrusive light spoils the room. I swipe down to decline because I know she won’t make anything of this later. I have a very practiced repertoire of scenarios for why I couldn’t possibly talk to her at that time. I was in a late-evening seminar. A bunch of us got together for a drink at the hotel bar. I fucking hate having to do this just to get away from you. Well, two of those are in the repertoire anyway. Can’t have any honesty sullying things.

I set the phone to Do Not Disturb and flip the door-handle hanger to the same language. The hanger is pretty categorically clear but the AI instructions I sought in order to set the phone went back and forth between total silence and complete silence. I assume those are the same thing and so I set my phone on the night stand and turn off the light in the room. There’s no light at all and it allows me to fall asleep almost instantly, with just the shortest speculation that perhaps complete silence implies a gradation on the silence continuum which is complete in the sense that it allows only certain limited categories of interruption, and it is only total silence which is absolute.

Sleep.

I never wake even for a moment during the night and I wake up slowly, lazily, luxuriously, as if the bright day outside was pulling me up gently rather than hauling me out of bed. I lie on my back and loll for a full half-hour, alternately just looking at the imperfections in the ceiling, the indentations here, the small outcroppings there, but also kind of lightly reviewing the day before, and hardly remembering anything I did either than take long walks, punctuated with a few good meals. These bring a tight smile to my face because those few activities are the whole purpose of my escapes.

I get up to shower and get dressed, and I take a brief look back at the sanctuary as I’m at the doorway with the handle of my wheeled suitcase in my hand. It’s like saying goodbye to a friend. I pay my bill at the front desk—it’s an old-fashioned place where you can’t just leave and have the invoice emailed: you have to stand in line.

“Nice to have you here again, sir,” she says when it’s my turn.

“Nice to be here,” I say.

The drive back starts with the peace and zen brought by this focused experience, but devolves to a flatness at first and finally to nervousness again as I pull into our driveway.