IN A SPACE

Watching Jane circle the rink for an hour, punctuating the circuits with jumps, spins and loops, it's not only her athleticism and grace that amaze me, but also the fact that she seems, rationally and intelligently, to be navigating in and through infinite space according to coordinates that she can see and I can’t.

I, on the other hand, charge into corners and walk into walls.  Returning to my room early one morning at a famous fallen, grand-shabby downtown Los Angeles hotel, a passageway door silently closed behind me and I found myself apparently trapped in a long straight corridor with no point of ingress or egress, only wide white walls and massive blocking doors.  Crying out seemed pointless and impolite.  

For several long tense minutes, before clearing the mystery, I firmly believed I was dead.

Kinks: In A Space (Link)

Kate Sanborn, Old Time Wall Papers, Greenwich, The Literary Collector Press, 1905.