The End Of The Season

If you go down to the end of the resort, where the buildings thin out and the tourists never go, you'll find these last couple of rooms, straddling a murky canal.

I can't imagine they rent these rooms - not these days, anyway. The errant inner tube floating there indicates even the staff have abandoned it.

It must have not always been this way. I wonder how it came about, these derelict rooms in a busy resort. Surely the water had been fresh and flowing once. Perhaps all the changes and renovations they've made have altered its course, creating this dead end.

 I tried to think back to the way things used to be, but the park has changed so much and so often that it's impossible for my mind's eye to see. So many places built and rebuilt and paved over. With no map for reference, it becomes as vague as Stonehenge. The only thing left is a nagging feeling that things were once different, somehow.

It's something that always catches my eye and intrigues me, these signs of abandonment. It sometimes troubles me, too. Perhaps there's a subtle hint of foreboding in it. The changes that time inevitably brings.

I wander about the resort, noticing the bits and pieces left over from the past. The traces are growing dim, like my own childhood, and eventually must be replaced with something new.

In the meantime, though, we are still standing, like this empty room at the end of the season.