THE HOTEL

Life can be either long or short...

“Why on Earth are we here?” asked Solomon, shaking his head and uncertain about the gathering of travellers waiting for a bus.

This was the sort of road a bus was never seen on.

“Didn’t you know?” said Spudeye, shocked. “We’re on the way to the hotel.”

There was a general murmuring of approval. Of course that’s why they were there! What other reason could there be?

“Except you,” added Spudeye suavely. “You’re waiting for a camel. That’s your transport and it’ll take you to the hotel in double-quick time.”

“And you’re waiting for a bus?” asked Solomon. “I mean, I don’t recall a bus coming this way and I’ve been here for, oh, I don’t know, ages.”

“A life time,” nodded Spudeye, “So have I. A life time, and lookee here! At long last! The bus!”

It wasn’t there, then it was. A kind of skeleton of a bus, the sort they made before they learned how to make buses properly.

“Not so streamlined,” muttered Solomon, “I reckon I’ll be safer on my camel. At least the wind won’t blow through it.”

“All aboard!” roared the driver, and he pointed at Solomon, “but not you! There’s no room for you on this bus, never was and never will be!”

And suddenly Solomon was all alone. The bus was gone and with it all the men waiting for it had gone. All men, and not a woman amongst them.

“I bet they were going to a convention,” decided Solomon, “like I am.”

“Then climb up here or I’ll leave you standing, and then where would you be?” asked the camel, the one that had sneaked up on Solomon and stood there breathing stinking breath on him until he noticed the creature was there.

“Don’t be so impatient!” snapped Solomon, aggrievedly.

“If that’s going to be your attitude!” shrieked the camel, yes, the camel shrieked in a shriek fit to waken the dead, “if that’s going to be your attitude you can stuff it!”

And without a single passenger on its bony back that fragrant camel loped off.

Camels do lope, thought Solomon. Then, seeing his predicament there was only one thing for him to do.

“I’d better walk,” he decided, “to the hotel.”

And walk he did. His mind went numb as he put one foot in front of the other in an endless succession of walking. He seemed to be walked for ever. Then his legs went numb and he found himself crawling on his knees. Again, for ever. Then his knees went numb and he rippled along like a slimy snake. For ever.

And there, in front of him, arising out of his own slime, was the hotel.

The skeletal bus was there by the front door and Spudeye was just dismounting. He knew it was Spudeye, though he didn’t recognise the white robe that covered the man from head to toe. He hadn’t been dressed in that before he had caught that old bus: he had been clad quite normally in grey shorts and a white shirt. Smart, like he had been long ago.

“Like I wore at school,” thought Solomon.

But then he knew where he’d met Spudeye before. It had been at school, in the physical education changing room, in the shower where Spudeye had melted before his very eyes.

Poor Spudeye, he thought, but didn’t know why.

“High there!” he called when he reached the passengers when they were all standing in a white-robed group by the bus. He had crawled along like a grass snake, and when he stood up he was aching all over, but they didn’t notice.

“What are you doing here?” grumbled Spudeye, and half of the rest of the group nodded and murmured in approbation.

“I need to spend the night somewhere,” explained Solomon.

“There’s only one bed here,” grinned Spudeye, “it’s a big enough bed, sure enough, but it’s really only for us bus passengers. Why do you think you need to sleep in it?”

“Because I’m tired,” yawned Solomon.

“Then you should have come on that camel and not walked.”

“And crawled,” nodded Solomon.

“And slithered,” mused Spudeye. “And if you want to join us in our bed you’ll have to dress properly. You’ll have to wear one of these...” and he indicated the white all-in-one monk’s habit that covered just about all of him, except his head, though it had what looked like a hood hanging down behind him. “So cosy,” he purred.

“Why have you all come to this particular hotel,” asked a curious Solomon, “it’s a pretty mediocre looking place so far as I can see.”

“Depends how you look at it,” cackled Spudeye. “I look at it as a haven from the hardships of life, no women to batter your earlobes with their constant nagging, nothing but the harmony of your fellow man to help pass the time...”

“And there’s no bar,” muttered Solomon, pointing at a sign that appeared on the front door. NO BAR it read in multicoloured fluorescent writing, then, NO SEX...

“Just what the doctor ordered,” sighed Spudeye. “Sometimes it’s good to leave such nonsense behind. Are you joining us?”

“Do I have to wear one of those?” asked Solomon, pointing at Spudeye’s long white habit.

“It’s one of the rules, and a damned good one,” explained the philosophical Spudeye. “All a man really needs is a place to lay his head and good companions all around him… that’s what makes this place so special. Now tell me, do you want one of these robes? I’ll fetch you one if you like, just put it on and find a place in the bed for yourself...”

“I don’t know,” dithered Solomon.

“Come on, old fellow you’re supposed to be so wise, so you must see that it makes sense...”

And out of nowhere a white and enveloping hooded habit wrapped itself around Solomon, from the bottom of his chin down to his feet.

“That’s nice” chortled Spudeye, “do you remember that time in the school showers?”

“Not really,” sighed Solomon, “it was all so long ago.”

“I was there,” explained Spudeye, “and then I wasn’t… it was the water, you know, being too hot it gave me a heart attack even though I was only fourteen and had quite a lot of expectations in front of me. You were there, though, you saw...”

“I saw you melt,” nodded Solomon, “I remember now.”

“Come to bed,” urged Spudeye, and he led the whole group into the hotel.

What shocked Solomon most was the receptionist. He was a burly bloke with wings. Yes, proper wings, almost translucent like Tinkerbel might have had, only huge.

“Who are you staring at?” asked the receptionist, glaring at Solomon. “Room one,” he added, and gave them each a key, one after another, to room one…

“This is most strange,” mused Solomon.

“Everything is when you’re dead,” Spudeye assured him.

“Bloody odd,” agreed one of the other members of the group, “and as you’re a newcomer you’ll have to sleep at the end.

“I’m not tired yet,” protested Solomon, though he was and he knew it.

“You will be. Now come on,” said Spudeye, and they trooped into room one.

To Solomon’s eye the room seemed huge. It seemed to stretch for ever. Yet it contained little more than bed, a huge bed that appeared to stretch into the distance, covered by a gigantic sheet and, at the head end, one absurdly long bolster.

“This is silly!” protested Solomon.

“Don’t be goofy,” grinned Spudeye, “just get your head down, close your eyes and go to sleep. We’re all here together, me with a silly short journey behind me and you with a long one, walking and crawling and slithering along … but we all got here.”

“But where is here?” demanded Solomon.

“Here,” yawned Spudeye, “now get some sleep, won’t you?”

“What do we do when we wake up?” asked Solomon.

“What? Do?”

“No. Wake up, silly. That’s something we never do. Now shut those eyes of yours and go to sleep…

© Peter Rogerson 07.05.18