The Sugar Bear Lodge, 1: In The Moment After Now

When faced with the uncertainties of an abstract bed and breakfast, a man struggles to maintain his composure and his sanity.

The Sugar Bear Lodge, 1: In The Moment After Now

A note slid under my door - oddly, it smelled like soup. I wasn’t used to mail though, especially since everyone switched to the Telepathic Postage Network after the whole “Moon incident.” I can’t even remember the last time I saw paper. But there it was, sitting unsettlingly near my condo door, parallel to one of the seven tikis in my room. I got out from behind that tiki and walked across the fractal-patterned rug to the envelope. It had a bear printed on it. I sipped carefully at my “Digital-Caramel-Macchiato with a coconut twist” while contemplating this foreign object. It also occured to me that my door was an electronic sliding door that opened vertically… no one could have pushed anything under that door. The envelope smelling of soup felt comfortable in my hand, but not too comfortable to the point that I would go on a date with it - more like, casual friend comfortable. I felt no hurry to open it so I set it on the tiki that I normally put mildly curious objects on to deal with later in the day.

I started heading to Class which was always an 11 minute walk away, except for on Thursdays when the sidewalk was feeling particularly sassy, in which case it would take me 14 minutes. It was Thursday. Class presented me with a lecture on bees, apparently bees are just now shifting from hieroglyphs to written language even though a queen bee from West Dakota wrote its first letter two years ago. Completely fascinating stuff. However, their language developed from bee-friendly radio wave interference and not glossolalia like us humans, so we will never be able to fully communicate with them.

Afterwards I headed towards the cafe, but then this cat walked up to me. We both stopped in front of each other and had a staring contest, the cat won. The cat meowed and looked up at screen on the wall next to us, then scampered off. The advertisement onscreen caught my attention.

The words “Sugar Bear Lodge” appeared above a cabin in the mountains. The cabin looked very homey being surrounded by snow and trees, it was a peaceful setting. The text faded and a bearded man wearing a red and black flannel and suspenders walked into view. He held a large axe across his shoulder and a bag of chopped wood in his left hand; two Golden Retrievers sat by his side.

“Welcome to the Sugar Bear Lodge, the new bed and breakfast at the peak of Sundance mountain.” He had the kind of voice that you could listen to for hours at a time, and damn, that beard. The man started walking towards the cabin while the camera followed him. “We specialize in creating the very best mountain experience…” there was a pause, and he glared seriously at the camera, “Guaranteed,” then winked. Kinda freaky.

“We’ve got all the amenities you could ever need!” he explained as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “You’ll drink the best cup o’ Joe you’ve ever tasted. Every morning…” he trailed off with the last word. “Every single morning.” Just then it struck me that there was another guy, taller than the bearded man, wearing a suit. He was standing far in the background outside the window glaring in. Right as I caught this the shot changed to one of the rooms. It was an extremely nice looking room with five copies of the same Picasso painting on the walls. But somehow it looked inviting, the sun came in through a large, high-up window that had an insane view of the mountain range.

“Just look at this room right here, quality stuff, all of it,” said the bearded man, “If you don’t want to spend an eternity in this room well too bad! Because we have reservations for LIFE!” he shouted.

I started walking away from the screen as the sound of a pretty rad sax solo took over the advertisement. I still needed some coffee. Once I got to the cafe the barista who usually serves me said hello. I asked for a double espresso but after downing that like it was my birthday I realized I needed 3 more. She kindly brewed up more of that sweet nectar and within minutes I was feeling some typa-way. The barista winked at me and said, “You know, all good adventures start with caffeine.” I have no clue why she said that but it sent this tingly feeling through my spine. Probably just because she was super cute. When I sat down at a table to get some work done I noticed this 17 year old guy finishing Italo Calvino’s Mr Palomar. He set down the digital book and stared deeply into the space in front of him. My guess was that this average Jim was currently having his brain flooded with thoughts of the Sun, the inevitability of death, and the beauty of the nature of our humanity. I remembered this happening to me one summer while arriving in the Adirondacks, absolutely glorious.

When I got home I decided to read the letter on my tiki. The bear suddenly looked familiar. Where had I seen this? I opened it to see the title “Welcome to The Sugar Bear Lodge” in big, bold type. Oh boy, it was that whacked-out lodge I saw the commercial for earlier today.

The letter read: “We welcome you to stay for four nights at The Sugar Bear Lodge, completely paid for by us!” Most of the attributes of the lodge that I saw earlier were listed below that, along with a phone number. I tried to remember if I still had a phone, I couldn’t find one inside so I looked around outside. Sure enough I found a cell phone hiding under an AC unit. I picked it up, entered my not-so-social security number, and dialed The Sugar Bear Lodge.

“Hello my dear boy!” answered a man. “I’ve been expecting your call for quite some time now.”

I was thoroughly lost. “How long have you been waiting? I just got this note today…” I replied. I also wondered how he knew it would be me but realized it would be best to leave that out.

“Oh, sonny. Here at the lodge time doesn’t exactly flow with the river so-to-speak.” He said.

“Excuse me?” I couldn’t get any real answer from what he was telling me.

“Let me try something different,” He started off, “It’s 3 PM right where you are, correct?”

“Right.”

“Well here, it’s.. let’s say 44:00 in the moment after Now. Ya dig me?”

“No sir... I’m not exactly digging anything, I’m just standing in my house.” What the hell was this guy on?

“Lucy, my dear boy.” he cut in.

“My name’s not Lucy…” I said.

“Oh ho ho,” he sort of chuckled, “You’ll understand soon enough. If you choose to accept our offer, a taxi will arrive at your domain within 3 to 5 business days. So, what do you say?”

I sighed, "Why the hell not? I'll go for it."

I really had nothing else to do and I wanted to see what this was all about so I accepted the invitation. Before I knew it I was in a cab on my way to the nuttiest place on the planet, at least I hope it was in this planet.