This hostel, it's loud, I've had to change my hours to work around the din & hubbub of a largely babbling clientele.
The TV, frequently on and always too loud. People always coming and going. Smells, the kitchen, some good cooks for sure, accents, some more pleasing than others (usually in languages other than English), it's raining and I need to be writing, studying the menu at work, and it's a challenge here to stay focused, forever and always the burden of other peoples thoughts voiced loudly.
Bunkmates, Steve, still, forever marginal and hanging on by his teeth, selling just enough books every day in Gastown to keep him in the hostel another night. He's growing stressed, increasingly, the rain doesn't allow him to sell, can't make that connection with people, nobody wants to stand and talk to him in the rain.
A small town German boy, here to learn to Ski in Whistler, he's terrified of the city, no bloody wonder, step outside the door of the hostel and you'd understand pretty quickly why. No one comes prepared for this.
And we've a drunk Irishman, he's in all day, then leaves in the evening - returns at 5:00 AM, coughing in the bunk below, he's a tickle in his throat, insensate, drunk, he's come in from where? The meth has irritated his throat, he lies there coughing, hacking, sleep here is precarious, Steve is annoyed, telling him to leave - he doesn't want to get sick, Anti-Vaxxer Steve, how to reconcile this? Afraid of the virus, afraid of the vaccine...
Always here there's the Noise, the traffic, periodic sirens, engines and wheels ploughing through wet streets, the rats in the walls, scratching, and - while I've a place to live I'm missing quietude of the Kootenays.
Work has become an escape.