The Hotel Manager

I’m trying to have fun writing again. So today I wrote an surreal flash fiction inspired by an image to see where it would take me.

Hotel Iridia hired a most impeccable man to manage their guests. This is how he himself defined the work when he explained what the owner should expect when she hired him. He would manage the guests and their experience, not the employees or hotel. He would work through the employees, the hotel, and—when necessary—through direct intervention on the floor. His presence was part of the experience, after all, reassuring the guests that all was cared for.

He was hardly to be missed. Look for the man in the dapper suit: black trousers and a matching jacket patterned with splashes of pink, dark green leaves, and a vine motif. For a head he wore a bouquet of flowers which he picked out each evening after work assisted by a local florist who called him by his first name.

Phineas walked the floor each morning to be seen just as much as he inspected the placement of the chairs and lamps. The Hotel Iridia interior offered pockets that invited groups or individuals to relax and isolate themselves from a world in constant motion.

What Phineas saw when he returned to the front lobby had no place in that world. The emotional reactions Phineas expressed were well-tended affectations, rather than any gut-level punches, but this came close to stirring a taste of bitter gall. A guest was waiting at the front desk, unattended.

He swept quickly into the empty space behind the desk, skipping past an apology directly to placing the guest at ease. "Thank you so much for your patience." He spoke with effulgent tones as if presenting a prize. "How may I help you, Mr. Aves?"

Emmet Aves stood at the desk with one hand on the marble surface, and his

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eyes scanning the planters behind him. He wore beige pajamas with a floral bird of paradise print which paired wonderfully with his iridescent green hummingbird head. He finally noticed the hotel manager.

"Ah, Phineas, have you noticed? My paper didn't arrive this morning."

Phineas tsked sympathetically and reached for the phone receiver to contact guest services, but Emmet Aves interrupted him.

"And that's not all. I called room service, but no one answered."

Phineas leaned forward, realizing Mr. Aves had a story to tell.

"And I came here to the front desk to find it unmanned which gave me some time to observe and think. Do you know, I haven't passed anyone in the halls. The elevator was empty. And not one person has pass on the street outside. It's most unusual, isn't it?"

Phineas took a moment to glance out the large picture windows. As Aves noted, not one person strode past, and while a few cars were parked across the street, none drove past shushing as they crossed the damp asphalt. "Quite unexpected, I must agree.” Phineas set the phone back onto the base. “We have specters that occasionally run away with the papers—a hotel cannot avoid such hauntings—but the missing staff is quite worrying.” Phineas reassessed the quiet lobby which a moment earlier had seemed to express a rightness, a sense that he had achieved the perfect space for the hotel guests to collect themselves. Now, he realized, there was no life here anymore, although the space was perfectly arranged to support the daily interactions and collisions that generated

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opportunities and prospects. “Let's see if we can't locate a paper for you, Mr. Aves. I daresay, there may be news that might explain our situation."

Emmet nodded his long neck and laughed with a strange unrolling of his tongue. "It is a bit unsettling, isn’t it? I was once late for a mass suicide that had been announced through a company memo. My personal secretary had participated without passing the memo onto me. Ultimately, it worked out for the best, but that was an embarrassing gap on my resume. That's why I try to stay in touch with the world."

Phineas had rounded the counter and walked toward the back-of-house. "I imagine this is stirring up some unpleasant associations, but I will endeavor with my full effort to protect your peace, Mr. Aves. Normally, we would have you wait at the front desk, but perhaps we should remain together?" He pushed open the door and held it open for Mr. Aves.

Emmet dipped his head into the space beyond and found it disturbingly empty. The room was not empty, the room itself was emptiness.

"Ah, the space is quite amorphous, is it not?"

The bouquet that served as Phineas’ head rustled as the flowers and leaves turned towards the space behind the door. "How curious, the spatiality has been switched off. We are usually so active this rarely happens. It does this automatically if the sensors don't detect movement. To conserve energy." Phineas rapidly clapped his hands two times and the room snapped into existence. "Sound is the most reliable way to trigger the switch."

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Emmet followed Phineas into the room, curious at seeing the inner workings of the hotel he knew so well. It had a comfortable, functional feel. While it lacked the richness of the decor of the rest of the hotel, it didn't feel cheap or chaotic. Heavy metal cabinets held sparkling white towels, toiletries, and rolls of wrapped toilet paper. Leather shoes were lined up beside a shoeshine station. And two stacks of newspapers were sitting on a counter tied with rough string.

"Here we are," Phineas observed. "You read the Picayune, do you not?" Mr. Aves nodded and looked circumspect across the room. No signs of disarray, but it had that classic mysterious feel of a film set that had been quickly abandoned without a cap or umbrella being picked up and carried away.

"It still feels so empty without anyone here. Well, except for you...." Emmet turned back toward the counter expecting the hotel manager, but found no one there. His bouquet lay next to the stacks of papers. "Phineas? Did you step away?"

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?”

Quietly, deliberately, Emmet stepped towards the counter and picked up the bouquet. He inhaled the sweet fragrance which helped him calm his thoughts. Peonies weren't really his type of flower, but they had a wonderful weight to them. He set the bouquet down again and rounded the corner of the counter to read the paper's headlines.

"Ah," he said. "I see what has happened.” The headline on the Star Picayune was unambiguous, and Emmet Aves could already feel his body dissolving as the information spread out to his extremities.

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“The world has ended. By decree. So goes democracy, I suppose. Well, there's news I could have done without." At that, Emmet Aves disappeared with a startled laugh. Ten minutes later, a sensor clicked and the room collapsed out of existence.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote this with my head up and my eyes on the game. I wasn’t trying to create anything meaningful or intentional, but just reacting to the situation as it unfolded.

I realized after finishing that the story is a personal rection to the recent news coming out of South Korea where so much happened in a single night: martial law, civil disobedience, and now a possible presidential impeachment. A nation almost dissolved in less than 24 hours and I found this to be profoundly disturbing. Something that seems so stable can disappear because one person makes the decision to destroy what has been so carefully constructed.

That must have been on my mind, and this is what bubbled up.