I almost cried in the hotel foyer, letting the slightly musty air thaw my bones. Riz led us deeper into the lobby with its alcoves with statues of gods and goddesses holding bows and bunches of grapes, their togas draped over long kaftans. Past circular sofas of gold velvet and murals of gold sea monsters and mountain hunts. An empty check-in desk decorated with a mandala bordered in a Greek key design and gold phoenixes frozen in flight. Rich silk curtains—dusty with disuse—paired with white linen. The place must’ve been beyond beautiful once, before the cobwebs and the tattered edges of the sofas, before the smell of stale bodies. Like Santorini by way of the Silk Road.

Yusuf’s hand brushed mine as we trailed Riz, our blanket capes dragging on the floor behind us.

The room that Riz led us into had probably been a restaurant bar and dining room, once, like in one of the boutique hotels in Boston where I’d film a wedding reception that saw guests slinging back thirty-dollar martinis. Our feet sank into the thick red carpet while overhead crystal chandeliers hovered like enlarged snowflakes. A wall of windows looked out onto the snow-covered plain, with all the tables and chairs pushed against the other walls to make a broad clearing in the center of the room for what could’ve passed as the ruins of a huge pillow fort.

Maybe thirty guys lounged on mattresses and pillows on the floor—arms lazily draped around each other—or piles of sofa cushions and blankets. I couldn’t guess the theme of whatever costume bash had them lazing off a communal hangover. Some wore open silk jackets with Mandarin collars, which looked like uniforms from the hotel. Others in ripped military uniforms and T-shirts, scraps of suit jackets and what looked like animal furs. The air smelled of warm bodies and spilled booze. Glass shelves behind the bar nearby reached up to the ceiling, each bottle backlit and looking like a glowing cell under a microscope. If outside was the apocalypse, here was the after-party.

And lazing on a pile of mattresses at one end of the mass of bodies was a man with my face. Framed by the wall of windows behind them. He laughed at something one of the guys below him said, his wide smile showing his teeth.

*   *   *

Funny story. In this universe, my alternate self was a filmmaker turned Hollywood auteur director turned career-building mega-production company owner. Mostly, though, he seemed like a skeezebag.