weirdmonger
THE LAST BALCONY (www.nemonymous.com)
Welcome to the Angst Hotel
Welcome to the Angst Hotel
A collaboration with Paul Pinn
PUBLISHED 'PASSENGER PIGEONS' 1999
Despite the absence of furniture and fittings we wish you an enjoyable and comfortable stay. For your information we are one of the few remaining monuments in the city that has not been entirely cannibalised, and we pride ourselves on the security we provide to prevent further deterioration to our attractive building. In order to maintain our standards we would be grateful if you could resist the temptation to spit, vomit, urinate, defecate, bleed or etch graffiti on the ceilings, walls or uncovered portions of hotel flooring.
If you should find anything to your dissatisfaction, please refrain from using violence. Your weapons can either be handed in to reception on your arrival, or left in the security box in your bedroom. We do not advise you to carry them within the precincts of the hotel.
Thank you for taking the time to read this notice. And welcome to the Angst Hotel.
It was in longhand or what children call joined-up writing. Typewriters could do just about anything these days, even produce pre-pubescent scrawl. Or, rather, not typewriters as such, but breeds of jab-matrix processor that mashed the marrowfats of meaning and integrated them in neat ranks of message.
Yet the notice on my bedroom wall was not dissimilar in essence from the one I thought I had actually read. It did tell the occupant (me) to do and not do lots of things in the interests of communal well-being.
Surely, hotels needed guests during other months. But August was accepted to be the high season, when all the kids were free. On the other hand, could a year's overheads be supported by a single month's intake? Indeed, I deserved more than merely August for what I'd accomplished during September to July.
Still, the notice had thanked me for reading it.
My musings were deviated by an unnamed person knocking on my front door. I plucked my 23-shot Glock Mk.5 off an orange box posing as a cabinet, and through the entrance wood enquired after the identity of my caller.
An asexual oriental lilt slid through. "The Floor Trouble-shooter. You ordered a bed."
"And?" I responded.
"It's hear with me now."
Not being a trusting soul, I slipped an optic fibre hinge side of the door and studied on my wrist screen a young girl, perhaps 13, perhaps 21, holding a futon. I withdrew the optic, tucked my mixed-up snipe back into its sheath, cocked the Glock, unlocked the door and opened it wide
.
"Come in."
She handed me the futon. 'It's a single and I don't wrestle with the guests.' Then she deftly side-kicked me in the face. 'I don't take kindly to what you had in mind, either,' she announced as I rubbed my jaw and flicked my checking tongue around my teeth. 'If you need anything other than sex let me know. If sex you want, use this,' and she placed a calibrator on the orange box.
Her sardonic generosity inflamed me. 'Do you know who I am?' I shouted. And in case she didn't: 'I am the one who accomplishes the most between September and July with no time off for Christmas! How dare you insult me further by giving me this - this - wet dream manipulator!'
She cringed like a sea slug in salt. Her almond eyes turned to walnuts.
She bowed, scraped and grovelled, and finally asked for forgiveness. I told her what came first - the Yule Chicken or the Easter Egg - before grabbing her thick black hair in order to drag her to the floor and grant her the forgiveness she seemed to suddenly crave. Instead, she kick-boxed me in the snooper-sneep and laughed as I doubled over with her wig in my hand.
'Everybody has to live Augusts to the full, not only the likes of you guests,' she said, scornfully.
My jaw dropped, looking from the wig to her head and back again. "You're not... are you?"
"No, idiot - look back and see."
Yes, I'd called her she all the way through.
I burrowed, via her over-things, to her under-things, thinking of other things. Like why were kids only let free in August? Like why didn't she have any real toys for me to play with?
I was in a cartoon with twinkle-edged tears and comic strip expletives. But she sure was no comic. So, I've now written her up on the back of the door with all the others. Notice nailed on notice. Futons of flesh ripe for marking out. But even my claws couldn't join the writing up to the lower carbon clones.
Hopefully it's the First of September tomorrow and I can check out of August with my sheathed penis and all my soft luggage.
It's easier to misread Angst for August when your futon's shorter and less comfy than your past. Even snipers have to sleep. Holidays can be hard to bear, but thank you all the same for reading this far.
A collaboration with Paul Pinn
PUBLISHED 'PASSENGER PIGEONS' 1999
Despite the absence of furniture and fittings we wish you an enjoyable and comfortable stay. For your information we are one of the few remaining monuments in the city that has not been entirely cannibalised, and we pride ourselves on the security we provide to prevent further deterioration to our attractive building. In order to maintain our standards we would be grateful if you could resist the temptation to spit, vomit, urinate, defecate, bleed or etch graffiti on the ceilings, walls or uncovered portions of hotel flooring.
If you should find anything to your dissatisfaction, please refrain from using violence. Your weapons can either be handed in to reception on your arrival, or left in the security box in your bedroom. We do not advise you to carry them within the precincts of the hotel.
Thank you for taking the time to read this notice. And welcome to the Angst Hotel.
It was in longhand or what children call joined-up writing. Typewriters could do just about anything these days, even produce pre-pubescent scrawl. Or, rather, not typewriters as such, but breeds of jab-matrix processor that mashed the marrowfats of meaning and integrated them in neat ranks of message.
Yet the notice on my bedroom wall was not dissimilar in essence from the one I thought I had actually read. It did tell the occupant (me) to do and not do lots of things in the interests of communal well-being.
Surely, hotels needed guests during other months. But August was accepted to be the high season, when all the kids were free. On the other hand, could a year's overheads be supported by a single month's intake? Indeed, I deserved more than merely August for what I'd accomplished during September to July.
Still, the notice had thanked me for reading it.
My musings were deviated by an unnamed person knocking on my front door. I plucked my 23-shot Glock Mk.5 off an orange box posing as a cabinet, and through the entrance wood enquired after the identity of my caller.
An asexual oriental lilt slid through. "The Floor Trouble-shooter. You ordered a bed."
"And?" I responded.
"It's hear with me now."
Not being a trusting soul, I slipped an optic fibre hinge side of the door and studied on my wrist screen a young girl, perhaps 13, perhaps 21, holding a futon. I withdrew the optic, tucked my mixed-up snipe back into its sheath, cocked the Glock, unlocked the door and opened it wide
.
"Come in."
She handed me the futon. 'It's a single and I don't wrestle with the guests.' Then she deftly side-kicked me in the face. 'I don't take kindly to what you had in mind, either,' she announced as I rubbed my jaw and flicked my checking tongue around my teeth. 'If you need anything other than sex let me know. If sex you want, use this,' and she placed a calibrator on the orange box.
Her sardonic generosity inflamed me. 'Do you know who I am?' I shouted. And in case she didn't: 'I am the one who accomplishes the most between September and July with no time off for Christmas! How dare you insult me further by giving me this - this - wet dream manipulator!'
She cringed like a sea slug in salt. Her almond eyes turned to walnuts.
She bowed, scraped and grovelled, and finally asked for forgiveness. I told her what came first - the Yule Chicken or the Easter Egg - before grabbing her thick black hair in order to drag her to the floor and grant her the forgiveness she seemed to suddenly crave. Instead, she kick-boxed me in the snooper-sneep and laughed as I doubled over with her wig in my hand.
'Everybody has to live Augusts to the full, not only the likes of you guests,' she said, scornfully.
My jaw dropped, looking from the wig to her head and back again. "You're not... are you?"
"No, idiot - look back and see."
Yes, I'd called her she all the way through.
I burrowed, via her over-things, to her under-things, thinking of other things. Like why were kids only let free in August? Like why didn't she have any real toys for me to play with?
I was in a cartoon with twinkle-edged tears and comic strip expletives. But she sure was no comic. So, I've now written her up on the back of the door with all the others. Notice nailed on notice. Futons of flesh ripe for marking out. But even my claws couldn't join the writing up to the lower carbon clones.
Hopefully it's the First of September tomorrow and I can check out of August with my sheathed penis and all my soft luggage.
It's easier to misread Angst for August when your futon's shorter and less comfy than your past. Even snipers have to sleep. Holidays can be hard to bear, but thank you all the same for reading this far.
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