Someone shoulders you aside, a girl you can’t stop staring at. Maybe it’s the lace-trimmed black nightgown she’s wearing that barely covers her ass––the only thing she’s wearing besides a pair of strappy silver sandals. You feel overdressed. She hands you a small card and winks before vanishing into the crowd.
You wonder how a girl dressed like that could disappear so quickly as you turn over the card, hoping it’s was the girl’s phone number. An embossed invitation beams up at you. Please join us at the hotel chapel to witness the blessed union of the manuscripts Leprosy: A Love Story and The Undefined Use of This. The happy couple is registered at Pottery Barn and Barns and Nobel. You stick the invitation in your back pocket and look around for someone to take your suitcase.
You spy a bellman pushing an empty luggage trolley across the carpeted hallway. “Excuse me,” you call. “Where do I check this?” You point to your suitcase.
“Right there, sir,” he answers, walking away from you. “Follow the signs.”
Check luggage, reads the sign that wasn’t there before. Underneath it, an arrow mounted on a disk points right. You grip your bag by its creaking, near-broken handle, and take a step in that direction. But as your second foot follows the first, from the periphery you spot movement and look again to the sign. The arrow points left.
That can’t be right, you think, realizing that it’s left, and in that irony you find some cold comfort to balm your mounting paranoia. You start again, wondering what, indeed, is left, as you step off, and once more the disk shifts––shifts right. That’s definitely not right, you think, even though it is. This sign is wrong it its rightness. You stand still and the arrow moves, pointing down this time.
You set your suitcase on the ground as you notice a bell on a small shelf next to the sign. You give the bell’s steel nipple one light tap and a panel slides open. From that black quadrangle emerges a white-gloved hand at the end of a red-piped gabardine arm. The hand grips your bag by the handle and pulls it into the wall. You watch on, helpless, as your possessions are pulled into the inky emptiness.
You stare at the open panel for what seems like an hour, until you finally decide to move on. When you turn your back you hear the snap of fingers and turn to see the gloved hand holding out a claim ticket. You take it, noting that nothing is printed on the beige cardboard tag. You turn again, and are called back again by that finger snap. The hand has opened its palm. You reach for your wallet, thicker with credit cards than with cash, pull a few wilted bills from the damp leather and press them into the cotton palm. Is it possible that the hand just smiled at you?
You turn asking of anyone around you, “How am I supposed to find my room?” Your eyes land on an attractive woman with strawberry blond hair and sapphire eyes. Her silk blouse is unbuttoned to reveal a pink silk camisole. You wished you hadn’t checked your bag; you feel out of place without your pajamas on.
You open your mouth to strike up a conversation, but stop when you notice that the buttons are missing on her shirt. All of them gone, leaving empty button-holes and wisps of thread. “What happened to your buttons?” you ask.
She unzips her complimentary conference tote bag and pulls out a stuffed octopus. It only has one eye; you recognize the other as the button off your own cuff. She points to your neater sleeve. “He’ll be needing that.”
“Yes,” you hear yourself saying. “Of course he will, how rude of me.”
You offer your arm to her, asking, “What’s your name. Mine’s––”
“Why be hemmed in my something as rudimentary as a name? Really, can a few syllables contain one’s essence?”
She has a point, you think. She brings your hand towards her mouth, and for a delirious moment you think she might kiss it, or put one of your fingers in her mouth. She doesn’t. All she does is bite off your button, her perfect pearly teeth shearing the thread with a crisp snap. You watch as she pulls a needle out of the hem of her grey skirt and sews the button onto the little cephalopod’s plush face. She passes him to you and smiles. “Keep him close tonight,” she says.
You hold the tiny, cotton stuffed thing at arms length and ask, “What’s his name?”
She shoots you that look of didn’t we have this conversation already? Then she says, “He’ll watch for the idea thieves while you sleep.”
The what? You must have heard her wrong through the fog of your hangover. Maybe she was being ironic. Maybe you just need some coffee, feels like days since you had a cup. “Idea thieves?” you ask, looking for some clarity, but knowing this is a pattern in your life––in any man’s life––responding to what a pretty girl says, no matter how strange the words.
“They come out in droves for conventions like this,” she explains. “They bribe the bellmen to let them into your room and suck your ideas out of your ears with a giant straw.” She points to a man opening his briefcase with the deliberate slyness of a 1960’s spy-movie villain. He has a wide pink straw in one hand, which he quickly stashes in his luggage. “The only way to avoid them is to sleep in the bathtub, but,” she looks to her right and left, then whispers, “Herman here will give you a little extra protection. Now you know his name, so be careful with it.” She wiggles one of his tentacles. “Never hurts to have a little extra.”
Now you know why you spoke to her. She reminds you of the class pet in fifth grade, a white bunny you wanted so badly to take home for the weekend. Summer came before your name came up on Snuggles weekend getaway roster and you never forgave Jimmy for that last Saturday in May. You pull the cardstock from your back pocket. “Are you going to this?” you ask. “The manuscript wedding?”
“I have to buy a gift first,” she says, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “But yes, I’ll be there.”
You watch her firm backside for perhaps a moment too long before you realize... “Wait, I still don’t know who you are.” But she’s gone, lost in the parade. You can find her at that wedding, you tell yourself, and realize that you don’t have a gift either. If you can just get to your room, maybe you can wrap up some complimentary soaps, or raid the mini bar for a bottle of wine. You turn to look for another bellman and when you look back, she’s still gone. There’s a white silk thread on your tie.
You shake the girl out of your mind and step past the hazy brass doors to the elevator bank. You won’t find your room down here; maybe the residential floors can give you more assistance. You’re surprised to have an elevator all to yourself in this crowded convention. You look to the bank of buttons, but each one is blank. Not worn, but blank. An array of soft yellow tabs staring at you like sightless fish eyes. You count from the top––one, two, three––and on to the next row until you reach number 22 and press that. If you are wrong, you figure you can check the floor when you get there and orient yourself after.
The doors hum closed and you feel the floor shudder and shift. After a moment, they slide open. You notice the room is hemmed with potted plants and realize that, aside from the ferns, the room looks very much the same as the one you just left. That’s when you realize that it doesn’t look the same. It is the same. You’ve come back to the lobby.
You step back into the elevator car, thinking perhaps that you should count the buttons from the bottom instead, and that’s what you do. When the ride is over, you face the exit––of the lobby. You hail another bellman. “Excuse me, these elevators don’t seem to let me go up.”
“That’s because they aren’t elevators,” the bellman says in a bored tone, as if you are the dumbest person alive.
“They aren’t?”
“No. Those are perspectivators.”
“What?”
“Perspectivators. They take you to the same place, but open at a different angle. It allows you to achieve a new perspective.” His clinically snobbish tone reminds you of an art curator, or a wine expert.
“That’s––”
“You see, to have an elevator would presuppose that some floors, some rooms, some places are superior
to others. That you have to be elevated to get to them. That means, by default, that the other floors, the ‘lower’ ones, are some how to be viewed as inferior. By using perspectivators rather than elevators, we can circumvent that and reach a lateral union of all floors. We’re the only hotel that has them, you know. Very au courant.”
“Yes. But how do I get to the upper floors?”
“Uh uh. Not upper floors. Other floors. Other floors.”
Maybe you are the dumbest person alive. You thank him and look for some stairs. Even an idiot can manage the stairs. You don’t want the plush carpeted staircase leading up to the second lobby and the bar, not yet anyways, you want the concrete stairs that will take you to the next floor. You follow the signs past the bathrooms and you duck in the unadorned door, hoping no one spots you.
Three flights up you realize you have yet to see a door leading out. You climb another flight and there are still no floor numbers, no indicators that you’ve moved at all. You remember a video game you watched your nephew play where if you didn’t follow the level in the exact right pattern, you were doomed to repeat the same endless hallway until the pixelated hero ran out of time and died a shame-faced eight-bit death. You retreat down a flight and find a dining room chair in one corner. You look over your shoulder and there’s a door. Your nephew would be proud.
You wish for a chunky video-game NEXT LEVEL tag hanging above the scene, but you’re back in the lobby. You’re too tired to fight it anymore and look for the baggage claim. Maybe there’s something in your suitcase that you can part with as a wedding gift. Maybe one of those neckties you were never particularly fond of to begin with, like that paisley one that always seems out of place but was too expensive to throw out. You silently vow to become a hermit when you get out of here, to never again be swayed by current trends. You swear it, if you get out of here.
Your suitcase is waiting for you by that panel as if the disembodied arm knew you’d be coming. At least somebody knows what’s going on, you think as you turn to walk away. Then you spot an arrow pointing to the chapel, and hope it doesn’t change on you, doesn’t shift. It’s all just stress, you say to yourself. You imagined the perspectivators, the endless stairwell, the lost buttons. You get like this when you travel. It’s just par for the course.
You follow the sign—it doesn’t move, and you aren’t sure if this is a comfort. Your sit down at the back of the chapel, your butt and back stiff and numb on the wooden pews. Out of the corner of your eye you see the table is piled with gifts, all wrapped, all lovely, and you have nothing. A used paisley tie, not even parceled in white paper. The ceremony hasn’t started yet and you look around for the girl, maybe she’ll let you sign your name to her tag if you beg or offer her something. But she’s not there either. You wait until no one’s looking and duck out. You should probably send a card, you think, and make note of it in your Moleskine notebook.
You spy a set of revolving doors. Beyond their spinning glass panes you see nothing but fog. You push thorough them, the bellman winking at you as you pass, saying, “Welcome back, sir.” You know what’s coming, but push through anyway. No matter how many times you go round the egress is always the lobby, always faces the smiling bellmen, the conventioneers, the hotel. You aren’t getting out, not this way and you know it. You have to make your peace with this. It would be easier with some company, and you think maybe if you park yourself near the door you might catch a glimpse of that girl again. You sidle up to the wide oak bar. The barman asks, “What’ll it be?”
“A rum and tonic,” you demand. “Make it a double.” They make you sleepy, but they also make it easier. You take your drink to a big chair in the lobby, sinking deep into the buttery leather. You pull the suitcase next to you for safety, as you can feel sleep tugging down your lids like window shades. You can’t find the ticket, the one that’s supposed to take you home. You’ve torn apart your luggage a few times already looking for it. You can’t remember what time the flight leaves, or even the day it’s set for. Or what today is, honestly. Your glass is empty, and the need for sleep flows over you like a strange wind. You can get there, get away, if you can make it through that revolving door, past those bellmen, the street. And if you do make it to the tarmac, you hope that neither the plane nor you will be
90-Day Limit
Philip M. Roberts
Given how many people Roy had evicted from his apartment complex over the years, he’d always made sure to have all the details about an eviction up front and clear in his contracts, including the 90 days to clear out any belongings before he trashed them all.
On the 91st day after officially evicting the tenant in apartment C3, Roy stepped out of his office and walked across the parking lot towards the building. He ran his fingers absently across his balding head, scratched at his gut sticking out from beneath his stained t-shirt. He always itched when he got nervous, and he never liked dealing with the evictions.
He hadn’t actually seen the tenant in C3 for probably four or five month prior to the official eviction, but that, too, didn’t surprise him. So many of his tenants were involved with all sorts of unsavory things, Roy had gotten used to them disappearing in the night.
One of the steps shifted, nearly came loose beneath his bulk as he trudged up them to the second floor. Just another needed repair in a list so long Roy knew he’d never get to most of them. He knocked twice, the fourth time he’d done so since the last time he’d seen the man who rented it, and after a few seconds got out his keys and unlocked it himself.
He’d seen the remains of plenty of apartments after people were arrested or worse. He expected the smell of rotting food and waste, stains long soaked into the frayed carpet, and the normal clutter and disarray of everyday living. Roy saw all of this as he set foot in the apartment, but what he didn’t expect was the person standing in the hallway leading to the bedroom.
Roy froze in surprise, glad he’d brought the gun he’d developed a habit of carrying around wherever he went, but the odd nature of the thing he stared at stopped him from pulling it out. At first he’d have said it was a nude man staring back, head tilted a bit to the side, studying Roy just as thoroughly as Roy studied it, but the thing’s skin was dark gray, almost dripping wet, oozing down the body yet absorbing right back through the feet. It had no genitals from what he could tell, but the general shape appeared to be more like a man than anything else.
In the center of the head Roy saw a deep abyss, the skin pulling in on itself, only the thin outline of a head visible, but as Roy watched, the abyss began to vanish, gray flesh bubbling up until he could see a miniature replica of his own face staring back at him for a few seconds before it melted into the empty darkness.
He pulled out of the apartment and slammed the door shut before the thing could move. Roy stood on the outside of the door, heaving, feeling his heart racing, hoping he didn’t have yet another heart attack right around the corner.
He hunched over, let the world return to focus, let the blind panic fade until the rational side of him was back in control. The situation itself didn’t appear to be rational to him, but unless he wanted to just board up the door and leave the matter be, he had to do something.
“Okay then,” he whispered, pulled out his gun, and pushed open the door again.
The thing stood along the wall now, but it made no motion towards him, watching him instead with its empty face. Roy inched carefully into the room with his gun up. It tilted its head down towards the gun, back to Roy’s face, and before it could do anything else Roy fired off three shots into its mid-section. All three smacked wetly into the flesh, forming small holes that quickly filled back over with gray skin. It glanced down at the damage briefly before returning its head to Roy.
“What the hell are you?” he asked. The thing didn’t answer, at least not in words, but Roy felt a fierce buzzing in his head. It didn’t hurt, and the idea came to him that the thing was trying to talk to him, but Roy wasn’t physically capable of understa
nding what it said.
Keep things simple, he thought to himself. Ignore everything but what you know for certain. “I need you out of this apartment,” he said to it.
The thing didn’t move. Roy looked beyond it, towards the kitchen, and in the far corner he saw what looked like a large mound of dry, gray sludge. It looked, he thought, like maybe the corpse of one of the things he stared at. On the other side of the room he saw what he could only assume were the remains of the previous tenant. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but a skeleton surrounded by tattered strips of flesh were visible, and piled all around it he saw aged, dusty-looking books.
He was so caught up looking at the corpse he almost didn’t see the thing move, pushing off the wall, watery fingers reaching out to him. Though it still had no face Roy detected the animosity. One of its hands grabbed hold of Roy, the skin freezing and wet, immediately numbing his arm.
He fired off everything he had, most of the bullets smacking through the arm that held him, and he damaged it enough to yank himself free. The back of his head cracked sharply against the wood on the outside landing. He pulled his feet out right as the thing reached for them. The second the gray fingers touched the open door beyond the apartment they sparked with fire and melted into nothing, and the creature pulled back, buzzing fiercely in Roy’s head with what he thought was a cry of pain.
That thought made him smile.
He stood up, no noticeable damage to his arm, and saw it pull back against the wall.
“You can’t leave, can you?” Roy whispered.
Before he could say anything else the door opened behind him and a woman from C4 stepped out. “What the hell was all that—” she began to say until she saw the thing through the open door. “My God, what is that?” she whispered.
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