It was hot that night in Barcelona. The four person room had cooled down to a manageable temperature but still, only a sheet was necessary. I passed out on the bottom bunk, well before anyone else. But I only slept in shifts. All night I woke again and again, tossing and turning in order to get comfortable. My pillow was too small and the sheet kept falling off the bed. At some point though I ended up with another blanket. I awoke briefly to find it near my head and snuggled into the soft fabric. It cradled my head so that I no longer had my cheek against the cement wall. In the early morning rays I awoke one last time and briefly wondered where the blanket had come from. But that was not mine to know and so I drifted back off to sleep.
It wasn’t until the sun was streaming in through the window that I awoke suddenly and violently to the sound of a door slamming shut. I sat up and wiped the drool off my cheek. For a moment I took in my surroundings. I noticed a bag hanging from the top bunk, its straps dangling in front of me. I saw a pair of shoes near the door. And then I saw, tucked in between the wall and my pillow, a green bath towel. A bath towel that was not mine. Suddenly the pieces snapped together. The woman who slept above me must have hung her wet towel on the bed railing that ran against the wall. And at some point, in the middle of the night, it must have slipped through the crack between the bed and the wall and fallen, perfectly, into my arms. I had cuddled with and drooled on a used towel. I was mortified. If she walked back into the room, how could I possibly explain what had happened? If I was lucky, maybe in the dreariness of the morning the woman had not bothered to search for her missing towel. Or not bothered to look at me while I continued to sleep beneath her, curled up with it. I couldn’t be sure though. So I quickly folded the towel and hung it from the top rung of the bunk’s ladder as if it had been there this whole time. And then I grabbed my things and hid in the nearest bathroom to sit and pray that she would quickly leave.