TO REPORT OR NOT TO REPORT

[schlomo]

While I was walking through the corridors of the Brunswick, Maine, Sleep Inn, I overheard volleys of verbal abuse (punctuated with F-bombs) and thuds coming from Room 201 located at the end of the hallway next to the exit. At first I thought that the TV was the culprit, so I continued my walk. But when I returned to the end corridor, intensified swearing and frantic banging against the inside of the door convinced me that someone was indeed enraged against either him or herself or against somebody else.

Just as I was mulling whether to contact security, I decided to revisit Room 201 for a final reconnaissance. Instead of a ruckus, there was silence. What had happened in the meantime? Was someone incapacitated or was there reconciliation? In any case, I was still going to report what I had overheard earlier. But as I began to walk towards the lobby, the room numbers began to get jumbled and distorted with blurry additional digits. Was I so agitated that I was beginning to have visual hallucinations? Then I backtracked to Room 201, but it now was numbered 1022.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. After a few moments, I looked at the room number. It had morphed back to Room 201. Suddenly, I heard a female voice scream, “Let me into the bathroom.” Another silence ensued. I continued my walk, debating what to do. Before I got very far, the door to Room 201 opened. Carrying some luggage, a subdued young lady emerged, superficially unharmed, and then a tight-lipped young man appeared carrying a backpack. He quietly escorted her down the stairway.

I anxiously watched them drive off, relieved that the potentially dangerous situation in the room was defused, and I wasn’t caught in the crossfire: thanks to my impaired vision that short circuited my whistleblowing.