As if the little town of Port Costa wasn't mysterious enough, the town's sole hotel adds an even greater enigmatic air to the whole picture. Tucked above the café, up a spindly railed staircase, and down halls with red carpeted walls are a number of guest rooms. These are not your standard rooms, as per your typical hotels. There are no little soap bottles on the sink, so far as I can see, no uniform sheets and window drapings, and no phone down to the concierge. Instead some rooms have bare light bulbs, or little porcelain figurines of cats that sit on the nightstands.
I know little of the history of The Burlington Hotel. Like the rest of the town, the hotel seems bent on creating ambiguities, struggling back and forth between an air of hospitality and a desire to be left alone. It's like a place that seems to have found a crease in chronology and now functions outside of time.
