Weekly Challenge #314 – Hotel

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at podcasting.isfullofcrap.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge Number Three Hundred and Fourteen, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was hotel.

And we’ve got stories by a lot of people:

Thomas
Tom
Tura
Lizzie Gudkov
Serendipity Haven
Zackmann
Chris Munroe
Guy David
Bonchance and Sevi
Logan Berry
Steven Saus – and his book!
Chris the Nuclear Kid
Cliff
Julie
Danny
Norval Joe
TJ
Planet Z

And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post…

Obligatory cat photo:

The more people see this on Google Plus, Facebook, and Twitter – the more explaining you’ll have to do with your loved ones, coworkers, and parole officers.

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Tom

Cartesian grid

In a gentler age people lived in Hotels.

In a way it makes sense.

If you eliminate the need for all things kitchen

The room you need drops not only by square footage

But by raw functionality.

People bring you food; you eat, leaving the dishes for others

The restraint of Hotel life limits family building

So you don’t need more that one bed room.

Since there isn’t a financial drain toward child rearing

Moneys can go to the really important stuff

Books lots of books.

So you got a bed, books, and bathtub

What more could you possible want?

Thomas

The hotel was located a little off the freeway next to a meat market. It was a two story building, painted a bright red, and festooned with gaudy neon lights that blinked “Vacancy, Vacancy” Tom and Ellen pulled in late after their full day of driving South . Tom signed in as John and Nancy Smith, and they went to the room overlooking the large pool. The pool was empty, and there seemed to be no other people around. There was one other car in the lot. Tom appreciated the quiet and marveled at how reasonable the room rate was.

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The CostaBaja Hotel was full of kids on Spring break, so Tom and Ellen had to find an out-of-the-way room, far from the popular beach. The room was in a modest, old neighborhood, and the woman that greeted them at the door welcomed them and said they could stay in the room if they didn’t mind sharing the bathroom. During the night, nature called, and Tom went down the hall to the bathroom. There was lots of splashing and movement in the bathroom. The door was ajar and Tom looked in to see four, large, squidmen frolicking in the tub.

Tura

Welcome to the Aldebaran Imperial Hotel. These instructions are for your safety and convenience.

All rooms are colour-coded by environmental type. Yours is oxygen: blue. Public areas are vacuum: white.

Environment suits MUST be worn outside your designated zone. Remember that YOU may be toxic to THEM.

DO NOT ENTER PURPLE AREAS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Do not approach strangers other than hotel staff, unless you are sure that you are familiar with their species and their social customs.

The Hotel cannot be held responsible for injury or death, in whatever manner, resulting from disregard of these instructions.

Enjoy your stay.

Lizzie

“What’s he building in there,” the kids thought as they peeked through the dusty windows in the back. The old man stayed in the basement of the hotel for days on a row. Darkness engulfed his shadow even deeper as he paced back and forth. Strange noises, hammering sounds. The scar on his face, the tattoo on his arm, was he in jail? Every now and then he glanced at the windows and the kids cringed, wondering what he was building in there. They could swear they heard someone moaning the other day. Where is that poet who went missing…? (Inspired by Tom Waits song “What’s He Building in There”)

Serendipity

Hotel

A soft tap at the door; “Room service!”, then the clink and rattle of the breakfast trolley.

“I never ordered breakfast”, I protest, shuffling out of bed.

“Nonsense, Sir… The speciality; champagne breakfast with black truffle omelette. Enjoy!” – he smiles proffering my chair.

I shrug and sit.

It’s excellent and I tuck in with a hearty appetite.

“Just sign here, Mr Lambert”

Lambert?

The room number on the slip is 838… I’m in 833!

Half-eaten egg and popped champagne are cleared with a frown and now he’s stood at the door, hand outstretched expectantly.

“You want a damn tip!”

Zackmann

I was a little worried about working security for a hotel during a supervillain convention until I realised most are waiting for The Method to the Madness: A Guide to the Super Evil. I think it being especially calm for a convention likely because many of attendees are working on their submissions since they are due at the end of next month. I should have my kid help me write an essay for it about not using a security, housekeeping, or police job as a supervillain cover, Since we are the first people who investigators check. Everyone watches the watchers.

Munsi

Well since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell.

I had to. She kept the house.

And the kids.

I see them every other weekend, but in between it’s just me, alone in the hotel I’m staying in until I find an apartment.

I should be looking for an apartment, but I feel like doing that makes it somehow more permanent.

This is permanent.

It’s my own fault, I know. One lapse in judgment and my life came tumbling down. I have nobody to blame but myself, but sometimes…

…I get so lonely I could die.

Guy

We are pretty sure there’s a dimensional rift on room 306. Every once in a while one of the guests goes in. Problem is it’s an exchange. What goes out looks like the guest, but we are pretty sure it’s a demon. We know it by the way he abuses the hotel employes, being rude to the maids and abusive to the bell boys, so we use our special anti-demon contraption aka demon cage. Once it’s inside demanding a lawyer, we dispose of it in the river. In fact, there might be dimensional rifts on other rooms as well.

Sevi and Bonchance

Hotel

One
Hotel bed
On borrowed time
Needed night of respite
To let your body rest.
Strange noises echo all around you
Forcing your dreams to be interrupted rudely
You pull the musty pillow over your ears
Trying to drown out the sudden banging and thundering
The constant comings and goings.
Counting sheep thinking it will help ease your soul
Your body weary, begging for slumber, you pray
For the sounds to go away momentarily
Staring at the ceiling, wide awake
Sleep stolen by thin walls
You count little white sheep
They float over fences
Wake up call
This hotel
Sucks!

Hotel

Tom stood at the floor to ceiling window of his hotel room. The latest winter storm raged outside. He took a bite of the complimentary cookie then sipped the hot free coffee, the perfect dinner.

He watched a motorist dig out an opening in the wall of snow to make another attempt to get his car out of the lot.

A twinge of guilt poured over him, he would miss his daughter’s first ballet recital.
He checked all of the road conditions. He knew he had made the right choice in not attempting the long drive home.
The guilt remained.

Logan Berry

The first Thursday of every month they meet at a hotel, a different hotel every time, according to the order they appear in the telephone directory. They alternate procuring reservations, under names selected in alphabetical order from the The Big Book of Surnames, in the chapter, ”Most Common”.

They don’t speak, except in private sign language. They turn on the TV, fairly loud, and then play a recording. The recording is mostly silent, with the occasional cough, or snore, or flush of a toilet.

They make love soundlessly.

Until one day when they both cry out at once, so intense is their passion. In horror they dress quickly, and leave separately, never to meet again.

Steven the Nuclear Man

The school’s playground equipment squeaks behind Gretchen and Harvey
as they crawl under the brambly bushes. Gretchen stands on the far
side, a smirk flitting between her pigtails as Harvey wheezes, out of
breath.

Harvey looks up, past his classmate, and sees it first. “Candy!” The
children run for the strange building, entranced by the candycane
pillars, the gingerbread walls, the icing trim.

Their teacher’s voice carries across the bushes. “Harvey! Gretchen!
Recess is over!” Reluctantly, the children leave.

Inside, two witches glare furiously after the children.

The older witch snaps off a bit of peppermint. “Don’t check out, huh?”

Chris the Nuclear Kid

I followed Firehawk to the hotel. It had a hard-to-miss, multicolored sign reading The Inn

“I have prepared a room for our guest Firehawk” said the innkeeper.

“Thank you.” “She will show you to your room, we can talk in the morning.” Said Firehawk.

“Thank you, you have been very kind.” I replied.

The room was small and there was a map and a piece of paper with holes in it in the corner of the room. Looking at the paper closer I could see writing on its edge. “I’ll look at it in the morning.” I muttered to myself.

Julie

Housekeeping

I asked the maid to clear it all away– the merlot-stained glass, the towels, your coffee cup—to remove any reminder that you had been here, even briefly.

It is now a lovely memory; however, I need to wipe away the tangible vestiges because it is all so sweet, so unreal, that dwelling upon it is causing me physical pain.

And so I stare out at this city, buried in the fog and rain. I check the windows. They do not, blessedly, open. I am given a reprieve.

I sob, I wait for sleep. I curl against a pillow, which still bears your scent. I wouldn’t let the maid change the sheets.

Cliff

Checking in at the Full Moon Inn

The sign said “No Vacancy”. I rang the desk bell anyway. The clerk looked like a beard with eyes.
“We’re full.”
“Really? This place has probably a hundred rooms and you got eight cars in the lot.”
“We’re full.”
I slapped a hundred on the counter. He smiled, showing more pointy teeth than anyone should have.
Anyone natural, that is.
Heading to my room, I passed several guests. They looked like rejects from the Westminster dog show.
In my room, I loaded the spare magazines with silver rounds. Tomorrow, I would be dead or finally have the title Wolf’s Bane.

Hotel

Jack, a volunteer test subject for an experimental drug that shrinks the human body to tiny proportions, was put up in a luxury beachside hotel on the Gulf of Mexico. ” I can leave a free Hotel,” Jack murmured, heavily sedated by the drug, “just like Homer Simpson’s cartoon show, what’s the name if it?” Tiny Jack was now living inside an actual Monopoly game hotel, on a cocktail table on the beach. Suddenly, Jack’s body expands, shards of Monopoly hotel slice through his body. Several 1000 stitches later, Jack is fine, but he still cannot remember the name of Homer Simpson’s show.

Norval Joe

Owen woke, cold and soggy.
His cloak had done little to seal out the continuous drizzle throughout the night. He warmed slightly as they found the road and picked up their pace. But he was still wet, increasingly muddy and the rain continued.
Only the thought that the ranger, Traveller, had promised he would sleep in a real bed that night kept him going.
At dusk the company stood before a hovel, not much more than a pile of boards leaned against one another.
“What’s that?” Owen asked in despair.
Traveller patted Owen’s back and laughed, “The inn, of course.”

TJ

The knock was insistent. Which was the second unusual thing about this
night. My reservations at the Westwood Inn had been lost and reassigned
in a computer glitch, but the night desk manager assured me that my new
room, a suite, would be far more comfortable. Fine by me since they
comped the increased cost, but now, at 4:37 a.m., who did the person
knocking so frantically from the adjoining room suppose that I was? I
pulled my robe around my shoulders and opened the door to discover a
frightened, agitated woman. “Please help me,” she implored.
“It’s my daughter.”

Planet Z

Back in grade school, there was this kid who did magic.

He worked with cards, coins, and interlocking rings.

But his best trick was sticking four Monopoly houses in his mouth and spitting out a hotel.

We made him open his mouth to see if he had the houses under his tongue.

Nope. Because he’d swallowed them.

Plastic Monopoly houses are supposed to be non-toxic and safe, but one somehow caused an ulcer. They rushed him into surgery, and he died from an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.

At the funeral, his mom really let loose with the water works.