Conclave Part I By Jacob Jardel And with that, Martin was done. He was in the hotel room he’d been in for about a week, fleur-de-lis sprawled out ad infinitum across wallpaper that embraced the wall about as tightly as three decade-old wallpaper could cling to humid stucco. He stared into the bathroom mirror, face wet from evaporated tears and cold sink water, his third bottle of mojito Bartles and Jaymes clanking down as he finished off the first half—setting it down with a muffled force just like she always did. He grabbed the bottle of children’s aspirin and tried to figure out how many pills it would take to have an adult dosage before giving up on his calculations, chugging down the rest of his disgusting brew, and flopped onto the bed lifeless. Problem is he couldn’t get to sleep. Fantastic. He turned to his right side and stared out the window. For a cheap hotel, this place had a pretty decent third floor view of the cars driving by to wherever they decided to go that night, whether a particular place or a particular oblivion. In his inebriated stupor, he wondered what got him into this fake-French hotel to stare out crappy Venetian blinds out onto the streets of foreign cars after drinking 75% of some of the worst alcohol he’s had in his life. He contemplated his decisions, her decisions, life’s decisions as he came to the conclusion that something needed to change. Since she wasn’t changing and life sure as hell wasn’t changing, he thought he might as well take some initiative in his godforsaken life and do some changing on his own. But that involved going back to the house one last time. What was there, he didn’t know. The only certain thing was that something was there. Martin woke up the next morning, head clear except for the monstrous headache wreaked upon him from a night of god-awful alcohol. He got dressed, packed up what he had, and walked back to the house, the whole time thinking about what he would find there that could answer his questions or, at the very least, lead him down the right path. He walked up to and opened the front door to notice 72
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