The Traveler

He woke up in the dark. The only sound was the hum of the air conditioner. Like so many others, the room felt empty and cold. There were meaningless paintings on the walls, a soft carpet, and a faint smell of cleaning products. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. He lay still, trying to figure it out, but the room gave no clues. It could be anywhere.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The sheets were white, always white. He thought of the snow in Norway. But that was far away, right? Was it night or early morning? He couldn’t tell. He fumbled for the light switch, and the room was flooded with harsh light. He was nowhere.

He stood and stretched. His body ached from endless travel—another city, another bed. The days and nights blurred together. He moved to the window and pulled back the curtains. The view was the same as always: buildings, streets, and lights. He closed the curtains again.

The bathroom lights flickered on. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, looking for something familiar. The face he saw was tired. He splashed water on his face. The cold shock brought him to the present.

He packed his bag, the sameness pressing in on him. The traveler moved from place to place but went nowhere. Each destination was just another stop on an endless journey. He glanced around the room one last time, making sure he left nothing behind. In the early days, he would write little notes—”The truth is not here!”—and put them in the Bible in the nightstand’s drawer. He thought he was being clever until he found his own note in a Bible and realized he had forgotten that he had been there before.

He opened the mini-fridge, finding the usual: overpriced drinks and expired candy. Who actually drank the overpriced, too-cold wine or ate the chilled chocolate bars? He wondered. It didn’t matter.

He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. In the corridor, the heavy carpet swallowed the sound of his steps and numbered doors stretched out like a maze. He walked to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited. The descent was quick, the lobby empty. He checked out without a word, the receptionist’s polite smile a mere formality. He wondered if he came back tomorrow, would she remember him, or would her memory of him melt into one of many faces she saw every day, much like the hotel room to him.

Breakfast was the same routine: portioned sterility, aseptic fruit, and the smallest common taste. He felt like he had done this a thousand times before. He checked his watch. There was a customer to meet, a flight to catch, and another city to visit and forget. The airports were his only constants: security checks, boarding passes, and the smell of jet engine exhaust.

Outside, the city was waking up, but he felt no connection to it. He hailed a taxi, gave the driver the customer’s address, and sank into the back seat. As the car pulled away, he gazed out the window, the passing scenery a blur. He was a traveler, a person who was neither here nor there. His life was a series of stops, short connections, polite exchanges, and brief moments. The road stretched out before him, endless and unknown. And so he continued, moving forward, always moving, in search of something he could never quite find.

About the photos

The photos come mostly from pre-COVID business trips in different cities across the world. The first photos were taken using iPhones around 2010, and the latest are from 2024.

Each room could be on anywhere. Nothing in the room reveals where the photo was taken. The only constants on some of the photos are my computer bag and luggage.

Until now, I have been using them as a random background on my other website: https://www.dubmaker.com. Every time the page is loaded, a new random photo is displayed. No comments are provided, thus leaving the viewer without context and free to interpret the photo.