More news from the hospice.

I promise I won't spend each and every day of the next two weeks speaking bacon about my a) wide and varied accommodations b) lesbionic Queensland-based road trip, but this wee tale is a little too special to pass up.


Yesterday Gen and I arrived in Toowoomba (having giddily been photographed en route next to - yes - the Big Orange) and were hunting down a bed for the night when we stumbled completely by chance upon a archaic 50's motel. Being the purveyors of upstanding trash that we are, we climbed up the perfect ramshackle stairs and ran into a startled-looking man who asked us what we were doing there.


Me: Actually, we were looking to book a room for the night.


Nice man: Oh.


Gen: Do you have anything available?


Nice man: Of course. Which hospital or medical facility recommended you?


Me: .....


Nice man: Or was it a particular doctor?


Gen: ....Neither. We just saw you on the road and drove in.


Nice man: Oh! How amusing.



******************



Turns out we had accidentally discovered a charity hospice which provided accommodation for those either undergoing long-term medical treatment or visiting a relative in palliative care or awaiting the birth of a child, etc. The lovely man in charge assured us we were welcome to stay there as long as we were alright with being housed in a 'retro' room.


Nice man: It's got a circular bed, you see...


Me: WE'LL PAY IN ADVANCE.




Sure enough, the room contained a round bed with a pea-green velvet headboard and the type of mismatched 1957 furniture usually confined to grandparental living areas. The television required slapping to get a picture and the in-room telephone was a direct line to the hospital and 'only to be used if you require an ambulance or medical support'. The rest of the place looked like The Shining and was filled with similarly dusty furnishings and bizarre wall-hangings.



We were partially intrigued and mildly freaked out, until we thought about the kinds of emotional ghosts which usually linger in hotels and chalets like the one we'd just left - unbridled lust, bitter arguments, marriage-saving yearnings; fizzy champagne corks of feeling - and realised that those which now hung dense in the air around us included hope, and deep existential sadness; breathless anticipation for life, faith, stark prayer, grief.


It was both sobering and heartwarming to know those who had been in that circular bed before us and existed amongst those awkward, blessed pieces of furniture had been living a moment far more dangerous and beautiful than an oily rendevouz in a two-person hydrotherapy spa.




If you're passing by this way, it's called Glennon House. The round beds and padded bars won't last long, so do try to seek it out while you're still able.








118 days til the next election.