Swarm

He had left the hotel early in the morning, when the dew made the warm air wet and sticky. He felt something on his neck, tickling.

Smack

He looks down at his palm and sees the bloody and collapsed carcass of the largest mosquito ever existed.

He feels the familiar ache in his neck, knowing the itchiness is coming.

Like a pinprick, he receives another bite on the back of his hand.

His flips his palm over, spilling the mangled corpse of what once was, onto the black pavement.

The mosquito hovers over his laceration.

The mosquito looks down at the wound and then looks into the guest’s eyes.

The guest does not notice this and swats the mosquito away.

He returns late in the evening, after watching the days temperature become swollen and bulbous.

The absence of the sun leaves him no reprieve.

He does not remember the parking lot looking this barren or dark last evening.

Then, the hum.

It gets louder the nearer he gets.

Then, he is driving through a dark cloud. He can not longer see in front of him.

Pressed against his windshield by the millions, the mosquitos.

He parks and runs for the doors.

He feels them smacking against his face, biting.

He cannot breath.

He coughs up the mosquitos that have made their way into his maw.

Finally he is standing in front of the front desk.

Finally he is free.

“Hi! How are you doing this evening?” I ask looking up from my book.

“You know, you guys should really do something about the mosquitos out there.”

“Ok, I’ll talk to management and see what they can do. I’m so sorry about that.” I respond going back to my book as he walks upstairs.

It’s not going down

Something was amiss.

Strange things happening constantly in their house.

Come home to the furniture hovering an inch or so above the floor.

They’d pull out plates to find everyone cracked exactly and neatly down the middle.

The cat constantly hissing at darkened corners.

Now every time they woke up in the morning, theyre would be water on the floor.

At first it would be just a bit, like someone had just ran a mop across the floor.

Two days later it was more like a large puddle. Of course, they found it in the worst was imaginable, stockinged foot hitting the floor.

This evening, they woke up from dreams of being in the middle of the ocean, on a small boat, in a thunder store.

The water today was up to the top of the mattress.

She pops up and opens the door.

The water does not move.

The hallway remains completely dry.

He gets up and grabs the phone off of the wall in the kitchen.

“Yea I need a room”

“Okay, for this evening”

“Yes.”

I get his name, credit card info, and telephone number.

“Ok just to let you know we do have a 24 hour cancellation policy. If you don’t show up tonight, your card will still be charged for this evenings reservation.”

“Oh I am definely coming! I’ll be there in and hour.”

It hear splashing in the background and him saying, “Oh it’s not going down” as he hangs up the phone.

The Sleepover

“What are you guys in town for?”

“Well were from here. Were here for a wedding.” The man standing to the right tells me. The man slightly to the left and slightly behind him gives him a look.

“Uh yeah… His wedding… He’s getting married tomorrow.”

They both smile and I look up from checking them in and congratulate him.

“Well thank you” He says putting his head down to fill out the reg card, bashfully.

The one behind him voice booming tells me” Yea were celebrating his last night as a single man tonight.”

“Oh? Going out on the town?” I ask.

The clock ticks louder somewhere behind me. The seconds collecting like the nervous sweat on my brow. I say a silent prayer, knowing its only God who save me from the horror that could take place here tonight.

Please don’t throw a party here

Please don’t throw a party here

Please don’t throw a party here

AMEN

He smiles wider than could be comfortably possible.

“No…”

It’s suddenly hotter.

“… we’re having a slumber party”

Hmm

“Oh wow! That sounds like a lot of fun!”

Minutes after receiving their keys they stomp across the lobby with 2 more men in tow. Every single one of them has a case of beer and exactly one Wawa sub.

A bunch of 20 something year old men

a bunch of alcohol

barely any food

I would be less stressed if the devil himself has strolled through my lobby.

Later upstairs, they all fall flat on their backs onto the bed, exhausted after their pillow fight.

Tim rolls over to face Adam.

“Do you really love Amanda?”

“Uh yea that’s why I’m marring her, dipshit”

“Yea but like how can you be sure? I’m just curious. It seems so wild to me to think there’s someone out there I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Does your girlfriend know that?” Ray asks from the other bed, rolling over onto his stomach.

“I’ve never said anything… should I?”

“Man, you’ll know when you know. I really love Allison, but it’s more than that, and you understand what that is until you do.” Adam says.

Alan sits up on the bed and says,” Ok enough with all that gay shit. I’ve got something really fun for us to do.”

Alan is Amanda’s brother. No one here really knows or likes Alan.

He goes to his bag and pulls out a wooden black box.

“This was my great great grandmothers. Everyone says she was a witch.” Alan explains as every one reads the words “Hasbro Special Edition Ouija Board” printed clearly on the front of the box.

He opens it up as everyone get on the floor and sit around him in a circle.

“Okay everyone place your hand here. Does anyone have any questions they’d like to ask?”

Tim closes his eyes and asks the first question.

“Will Adam and Amanda be together for the rest of their lives?”

Alan gives him a disappointed look.

“That’s the best you can do?”

“Alan, relax. This is just….”

Adam gasps as the pointer starts moving under his had.

They watch as it glides and stops over “yes”

The whole rooms starts cheering and high fiving.

“Wow I am so happy for you, man!” Ray shouts.

Alan rolls his eyes.

“Whatever… One of you homos probably moved it…. Now someone ask a real question.”

“Will Tim ever get married?” Rays asks, staring hard at Alan, with his hands on the pointer.

“yes”

Another round of high fives and cheering.

Adam smiling says, “Okay, okay… I’ve got another one.”

Everyone puts their hands on the board.

“Has Tim met his future wife yet?”

Alan rolls his eyes as the pointer starts moving again and lands on “yes”

Everyone starts cheering again and Ray start in saying, “Okay I’ve got another one!”

Alan, of course, interrupts, “No you guys are done. I’m asking the next question. Put your fucking hand on the board.”

Everyone humors him.

Dramatically, Alan closes his eyes.

“Is there any evil spirits staying in the hotel tonight?”

The board starts shaking and the pointer starts moving completely untouched.

Adam reads the letters it’s pointing out.

“O….N….L….Y”

“Only” Alan announces.

“Y…..O…..U”

“Only you!” Ray says.

“Yea we can all read, asshole!” Alan shouts through there laughter.

Alan stands up.

“Whatever. This is fake anyway,” He says kicking the board against the wall.

“Wow. You know you have to say bye when you’re done or you let whatever spirits we were just talking to stay with us.”

“It’s not fucking real!” Alan shouts.

“Okay man just chill… let’s just relax. Well pop some popcorn and watch a movie. P.S. I Love You is on HBO tonight…” Adam suggests.

The phone rings.

They all turn and look at it.

“Do you think it’s the spirits calling…” Rays says wiggling his fingers in the air and moving his eyebrows up and down.

Adam rolls his eyes as he picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Noelle from the front desk. I’m getting some noise complaints. Could you please keep it down?”

“Oh yea. Sorry about that… No problem.”

“Thank you” I say as I hang up.

Adam turns to Alan.

“Front desk says we’re making too much noise. Let’s settle down.”

“Ok, I’ve got an idea. A nice quiet game… let’s do Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” Tim says.

Everyone looks at him quizzically.

“Come on, I always heard about girls doing it at slumber parties when we were in school. It sounds fun. Let’s try.”

“I think that’s a great idea Tim! And it’s my bachelors party so we are doing it.. Alan lay flat on the floor.”

“Why me?”

“Because I said so. ”

Begrudgingly he gets on the floor as the other men surround him.

Tim sits behind Alans head.

“Okay put two fingers under Alan and chant, “Light as a feather stiff as a board” and we should be able to lift him up like that I guess… Alright lets start, I guess.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board

Light as a feather, stiff as a board

Light as a feather stiff as a board

Alan is suddenly floating. The men stare wide eyed at one another. Alan looks around shocked.

“What did you do to me? Put me back down!”

“Uh uh I don’t know how… I didn’t think we’d get his far.” Tim sputters.

Adam puts both of his hands on his stomach and tries pushing down. Alan isn’t budging.

Ray stands.

“I can’t deal with this shit,” he says as he starts walking toward the door.

He stands in horror as the door creaks open.

The devil walks in.

He looks down at Alan.

“You know, you really shouldn’t mess with the spirits, but if you do… you really shouldn’t kick them and show them such poor hospitality.”

He snaps his fingers and Alan’s entire body ignites in flame.

All the other men start screaming.

The devil laughs and snaps his fingers again.

He is gone and Alan drops to the floor unscathed but shaken.

I stand in the open doorway, looking in.

“Um could you like not summons Satan to the hotel and again could you keep the noise level down. The next time I come up here I’m going to have ask you guys to leave.”

Directions

“Could you help me find this school? My grandson is graduating middle school tomorrow and I tried to drive around and figure out and get there tonight but I can’t seem to find it? This city is so confusing!” She says staggering up to the desk.

“Oh I know! There a lot going on here! Lots of highways!” I said with a smile, “let me look up where the school is…”

I type the school name into google and explain to here that it’s right behind the baseball stadium. I tell here how I would get there and print out a map with a list of direction.

While I’m doing all of this, the guest fills me in on her family drama. Her daughter in law apparently hates her gut, so she says, but she’s not a huge fan of her either.

The next day she drives looking at the map, looking at all the signs and looking for the stadium. She has her head turned to the right looking at the street signs and then takes a look down at the printed out map in her hands. She doesn’t notice that the traffic light ahead of her had turned red, until her BMW smashes into the Ford F1-50 in front her.

A man steps out of the truck and looks a the bumper hanging loose off the back of his truck. He pulls his hat off and slams it on the ground and curses.

She gets out of her car with tears starting to form in her eyes.

“I just finishes paying off this car!” She says to him, her voice slightly louder and higher pitched that usually.

“Well this is your fault lady! You,” he says pointing into her face,” hit me,” he says pointing into his own chest.

“Well I’m lost! It’s not my fault your city is so confusing!”

“Well its a lot less confusing if you pulled your own head out of your own ass!”

“You know what? I’m calling the police!” She yells just as sirens ring out from behind him.

A police officer steps out of his vehicle. He walks over to the vehicles. Saying, “simmer down we’ll get this taken care of” as he sees the man’s red face.

He looks at the guest and look of surprise and confusion streads across his face.

“Mom?” He says.

She looks up into her sons face and see lines on it that she hadn’t seen the last time she saw him, the salt and pepper in his closely cropped hair.

“Son? When did you become a police officer? And what are you doing working? Aren’t you going to the graduation?”

“Graduation?”

“Your son’s eighth grade graduation? The graduation you invited me too? The graduation I drove 150 miles to get to?”

“Mom, Tom graduated the eighth grade years ago! He’s in college now! You were there!”

“Then why did you send me this invitation?” She says pulling a piece of paper out of her handbag.

“Mom that date on there is from 7 years ago, ” He looks at here with concern, “Why don’t you get into the car, get out of this heat. I’m going to take you to the doctor to get you checked out.”

It was decided she must be going senile and she should probably, much to her dismay, move in with her son and his wife, so they could look after her.

2 weeks ago, the guests daughter in law laid in bed trying to sleep but was kept awake by an ache in her chest. Her husband had been talking about his mother, about how much he enjoyed his time when her when he was younger and how he wished they lived just a little closer so he could see her more often, maybe have her over for dinner every Sunday, like his parents did with his grandparents.

The daughter in law knew this situation broke her husbands heart and, in turn, that broke hers.

She wish there was something she could do.

Then a thought occurred to her.

When she was a child she found she could make little things happen, with no more effort than a thought. Nothing too extraordinary but definitely convenient things. If she was on the toilet at home alone and discover she had run out of toilet paper, she could conjure Charmin out of thin air. If she need more sleep in the morning before school, she could simply stop time for a couple more hours and rest. Once, when she was 16, she ran out of gas driving home from her job at beach side ice creamery  and laid her head back on the head rest and just thought about how bad she wanted to get home so she could crawl into bed.

In college, she found other women, with similar abilities. She joined a coven and learned to do more impressive things.

When she got married, she decided to give most of that up, to avoid any awkward questions.

She couldn’t give up her book of spells, though. I mean, what do you even do with something like that? Throw it in the garbage? Sell it at a yard sale?

She walked into her bathroom and pulled it out from under the sink where she had hidden it. She found a spell, that just might work.

She sat cross legged on the cold tiles, closed her eyes and began chanting.

 

Valuables

“Where are you headed next?” I ask the guest standing in front of me, as his receipt is printing out.

“Well I have to go to an office in New York, but I’ve got to take a quick flight home to Texas, to pick up some equipment, first.”

“Oh wow! You couldn’t mail the equipment?”

He thinks about getting off of his plane in Dallas and seeing his wife standing there with a smile on her face. He thinks about how it feel like an explosion in his head when she kisses him and silky golden sand in his hand when she’s holding it. He thinks about cooking dinner with her, listening to music, hearing her beautiful voice as she sings along, and her laugh when he tries to sing too. He thinks about how she looks as she takes the first bite of good food. He thinks about the selfless way she tries to make him laugh and smile in the car, when all she really wants to do is beg him to just stay home, just a bit longer.

“What’s in Texas is really valuable,” the guest tells me.

Better late than DEAD

“Our keys aren’t working.”

“Oh I’m sorry,  let me make you a new set. They probably just got demagnetized. It happens every so often.”

I go back to doing my bucket check.

“These aren’t working either…”

“I’m so sorry. We are getting a remodel soon and we’ll have those new key cards that you don’t even have to swipe. The locks we have now are probably about as old as the hotel. When you went to unlock it, did any lights flash on the lock?”

“No I didn’t see anything”

“OK your lock box may be dead. I’ll make another set and try to use my master key to see if that works. Follow me to the room please.”

When we get to the door I tell them, “I’m going to first try these your keys just in case.”

I swipe once and the green light flashes.

“Well that seemed to work” I tell them as I push the door open.

Then the door bar catches. I look in the crack and see the bathroom light on.

“Looks like there is someone already in there”

The guest says behind me.

“That’s odd. I’m so sorry. Lets go back to the lobby while I figure this out. Again I’m so sorry”

I walk back to the front desk thinking about what I’m going to do. We have one room left tonight, but it’s a double bed, where this guest booked a king room. And my manager has breathing down my neck all night about this room because she want’s us to sell out and if i just put them in that room, we can’t sell out because somewhere in this hotel is an open room… I guess.

I look up in the computer that room number and it says the guest in front of me is the only guest checked into that room. I look through the reg cards and the book that we put all of our notes in, for a room change that just didn’t make it to the computer and nothing. There isn’t suppose to be anyone in that room.

Nobody came to the door when I opened it up earlier, and wouldn’t a normal person at least get out of bed if they heard someone coming into their room…

Maybe there’s not anyone in the room. Maybe the house keeper just somehow locked us out in some freak occurrence.

I call the room.

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?” who ever is on the other end of the line screams at me.

“Sir I don’t have any record of anyone being in that room. I’m sorry to bother you but can I ask your last name?”

“NO IM NOT DOING THAT! YOU SHOULD KNOW WHO’S IN WHAT ROOM! ROOM 103! LOOK IT UP IN YOUR LITTLE COMPUTER!

“Okay well I’ll figure something out. Thanks! You have a goodnight”

“NO I AM NOT HAVING A GOOD NIGHT” he says as I am hanging up the phone.

At this point, I have no choice, but to put them in the last room so I make them keys explain the situation.

“I’m really sorry. I cannot understand how this happen.”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” The guest tells me, “This happens to me all the time.”

He laughs, walking away.

When he was around the age of twenty five, this guest was riding a skate board down a hill. He saw a stop sign but was approaching it at such great speeds and such a level of apathy, that stopping was out to the question. The same could be said for the oncoming vehicle, seeing the guest and thinking, “Oh he’ll stop” seconds before barrelling into him.

The guest was rushed the hospital. This was on December 31st 1999 at around 11:45 PM.

The hospital he went to had at one point been the donee of a zealous billionaire who made his billions on the stock market.

When the hospitals started receiving the money, they had some much they didn’t know what to do with it. They replaced, remodeled and anything else you can think of short of providing care to the needy.

One of their investments was a collection of the state of the art clock.

These clocks didn’t do much that the old analog clocks. The main purpose they served was solving the problem of awkward lulls in conversation in the break room.

A doctor would say something horrendous like:

“I have a four year old patient that’s going to die of cancer in less than a years time. I am heart broken. What is the point of this life?”

And a colleague, not knowing how to respond would say:

“Did ya hear about these new clocks? They don’t run off a gears like the old analog. They have a little computer inside of them and man they tell you the date, time, and year! Pretty cool right?”

Then before figure out what our half asked programming would mean when the first two digits of the year changed, the big time hospital donor, lost all of his cash.

He had to sell his yacht! What a shame!

When Y2K made it’s slow maddening approach, the hospital worked so had on their actual computers and getting them ready to for the new millennium that everyone completely for got about the clocks that were about to become incredibly inaccurate!

The guest was laying on an operating table. His heart had stopped. One doctor looked at the clock to call his time of death. But the clock was blank. Had the doctor not been covering blood and face to face with a dead man that reminded him a little of his son, he may have felt the weight lift off his shoulders and the freedom that comes with living an timeless existence.

“Humm we’ve been here? What? 40 minutes?” He shouted looking around.

Everyone shrugged their shoulders.

“Don’t call it… I’m going to bring him back! I know he’s not gone yet!” another doctor shouted rubbing his defibrillators.

“No no he’s gone man…. uhhh I’m going to say like 12:15 TOD”

Then the man snapped back to life.

According to this doctor he was dead, but he really wasn’t, but this doctor called his death at 12:15 when it was really 1:30a. The universe or God or whatever got really confused at all this.

To make up for all this time skipped for a moment in this guest’s life. And also didnt.

Now there’s another him, walking the earh, about an hour and 15 minutes early for everything.

 

YANNY

“Hey, um, I think theres an animal or something in my bathroom…”

“Um excuse me? What makes you say that?” I say into the phone.

“There some uh… noise coming from my bathroom.”

“Ok I’ll be up there in a moment to check it out.”

Inside of the guests room, I see clearly a light peaking out from under the bathroom door.

“Is anyone else staying with you tonight?” I ask her.

“No it’s just me,” she replies, “I woke up to some banging and I thought it was the people next to me but then I saw the bathroom door closed.”

“Have you opened the door yet?”

She shakes her head no and we both just stair straight ahead at the door. She doesn’t want to open it, and I don’t want to open it, but it stands waiting to be opened.

Ok I guess I’m on the clock so I have to take control of the situation.

I knock.

“Hello, is someone in there?”

My heart thumps out a rhythm.

Please no one answer.

Please no one answer.

Please no one answer.

A guttural sound is quietly heard.

With shaking hands, I open the door.

Standing so tall, this creatures back is bent up against the ceiling. It’s skin is charcoal and dusty,  it’s bones knobs and hard lines pushing through.

“Yanny… Yanny… Yanny” It cries out.

I close the door and we head down to the lobby and I call the police.

“It just kept saying ‘yanny’ over and over agian.” I describe the incident to the officer.

“Yanny?” the guest says looking at me,”I thought he said laurel. I heard Laurel.”

 

 

 

The Mother’s Day Pilgrimage

“What are you guy in town for?” I ask the guests. It’s a man and woman, both with round faces and hair shaved down to their scalp.

The man looks ecstactic to be here.

The woman does not.

“We’re actually on our way to [name of near by park],” He tells me smiling from ear to ear, “We…”

Before he can finish his sentence, his wife cuts him off, giving him a stern look.

“We just want to spend our Sunday in nature, check out the wild life around here, you know…” She says giving me a quick smile.

“Oh that sounds fun!” I tell them, finishing up their check in.

 

The next morning they get up at 2:30 am on the dot. They silently dress and sneak out the side door of the hotel.

They get into their car, cut off the radio and singing Barbra Streisand’s ‘The Way We Were’ in a perfect two part harmony. Then they sing Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’. Then Joni Mitchel’s ‘Both Side Now’.

They are singing all the favorite songs of all the mothers in their family.

After few more songs they got to the park. They get on one trial, then they get off of it, heading deep into the untouched forest. Then they find it.

It’s The Pine. It’s tall, with branches spread wide, open arms ready to pull you in.

They start to dig and dig and dig. They dig exactly 2 feet down, each pulling out a separate measuring tape to be accurate. Then they pull zip lock bags out, full of hair. They dump the hair into the hole and bury it.

They both sigh, say a prayer, and head back to the car.

Then they go home.

Every mothers day, they shave their heads sing their mothers’ favorite songs and come to this tree and bury their hair.

This is a ritual that has been in their family since coming to America. They don’t know why they do it. They don’t know if it’s legal to do. They don’t know if it really affects anything.

What they do know is that when they are there, that their mother was there and her mother was there and her mother was there and so on, and that makes it worth it.

 

 

The Actor

“What brings you here today sir?”

“I need to get away from my wife.”

I laugh. This is obviously a joke. Who would talk about something so personal to a random front desk associate?

Obviously this man.

His face does not move. He’s not smiling and he’s definitely not laughing.

“Oh I’m so sorry to hear that.” I say avoiding his eyes looking down at the computer.

“Yeah, I caught her in bed with another man when I came home from work today.”

“Oh no!” I say, really meaning ‘ok please stop talking now. I’m like super uncomfortable.’

“I just don’t know what to do. We’ve been together since we were in the 8th grade, 25 years. She’s the only woman I’ve ever even kissed. So I just need to take this weekend to be alone and think. I don’t want to leave her, but isn’t that what you’re suppose to do when someone is unfaithful? How could we go back to the way it was?”

“Sir I am so sorry to hear you are going through that.”

This is awful.

I give him his room key and tell him to try to have a good night and to call down to the front desk if there’s anything I could do to make his weekend here better.

He walks away and when he is out of site, he smiles to himself.

When he saw Kim Cattrall in Big Trouble in Little China when he was a kid, he fell in love. This lead him to feverishly send thousands of fan letter, collect every bit of memorabilia he could get his hands on, and when he was an adult, he moved to Vancover to be closer to her. He pined with every ounce of his being to find someway to meet her, but no dice.

He decided he would have to become an actor.

This was no easy feat. He was told he was a terrible actor, at every audition, by every agent he came into contact with.

When he turned 36 years old he gave it up.

He became a bible salesman instead, going door to door every Sunday, selling the Lord’s word.

At every hotel he gave the hotel clerk a different story as to why he was there. Every time he would get someone to believe him he’d walk away thinking, ‘terrible actor, huh?’

#GAGFEST

It was a beautiful evening.

They sat on the deck, eating crabs and watching the waves, watching the calm white sun sliding down in the fiery orange sky into the dark sea on the horizon.

“You make me feel like that sun,” Guest 1 tells Guest 2, “Bright and calm, even with a world burning all around us.”

Guest 2 looks up and smiles. He takes Guest 1’s hand and says, “I love you. I love the way you look at the world.”

“I love the way you look at me” He responds.

They share a kiss.

When they are done with their meal they walk down the board walk. Guest 2 stops at a claw machine and spends $15 trying to win a stuffed animal for Guest 1.

“It’s OK. I don’t need anything. As long as I have you, I have enough” Guest one tells him, his checks turning red.

“Well just one more try” He insists slipping a couple more quarters into the machine.

They walk away, prize in hand.

One the ride back to the hotel, they play thier favorite CD, Norah Jones’ 2002 album ‘Come Away With Me’, but they don’t hear it. They are too busy talking, laughing, holding hands, feeling the electricity between their two bodies, feeling the need to merge into one, to feel their skin melt together, falling more and more in love.

They are still talking and laughing as the they walk across the lobby, so into each other that they don’t even acknowledge me when I tell the ‘Good Evening’.