Hotel
Blink your eyes, as you learned to do in the tram.
If you don’t remember how, go back and reread the end of page 8.
Where the lobby of Hotel Petul just exuded a mix of smells—old carpeting, cleaning products, and commercial kitchens—you now smell only fresh hay. The concept of a hotel seems to function differently in this dimension. And it’s not only laid out for people, either. I say this because in front of you at the reception desk is a young man who not only is giving off the smell of the liquorice root he’s chewing on; he also appears to be checking in with his horse. The two of them just walked in from the field. It seems that people stay in this dimension not for an entire night, but only for shorter rest periods. Since the hay bales are unfortunately all currently occupied, you might opt for the thermal pools back there—stepping in and out from cold to hot, cold to hot. The salts and essential oils get up your nose and burn, so you squint your eyes. The cold water, on the other hand, is odourless; here you smell at most the algae below the water’s surface, which causes you to slip on the stones.
You hear something that startles you. You drop the book, pick it up again and turn to page 27.