dotdotdot

The acrid smell of iced tea mix ground into polyester carpet and then set ablaze permeated the room. Tattered banners touting events fifty years past hung from the columns, drawing the eyes up towards the ceiling. Of course, there was nothing there to be seen, save for an empty balcony and more banners. Along the walls, lined haphazardly under the windows, were a few potted plants - alive all, though they had clearly seen better days. They looked, like everything else in the lobby, weary of the day-to-day mundanity. Sick, perhaps, of their continuing unconscious obligation to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. True, this sickness of will could not affect the chlorophyl-lacking residents of the building that filed in at out at odd times, but the base premise remained the same. From time to time, a harsh siren or car alarm would cut through the stale dusty air that hung stagnant in clouds a few feet below the peeling ceiling, but on the whole things remained the same. Lazy, longing to be someplace else, but accepting of the apparent fate laid bare before it. No one stayed long, lest the lobby's melancholy become contagious and spread.

(I admit, I really just wanted to write that first sentence. Imagine it as the start to some sort of film noir detective film. I should do a phone post of me reading it aloud. But don't go thinking I actually like this paragraph... it's a mess. I should really go do my bio now, though.)