Outland Hotel: Prologue, A Quandary
These fucking dreams… I’m not talking about just bad dreams; nightmares about hanging on the brink of economic oblivion, or falling off a cliff, or angels and devils in flight; robes billowing, swords slashing in angelic blood, spraying the distal clouds...
Outland Hotel: The Hotel
Fragments, pieces: A violin curls and flits. Void. Smattering of images, little electronic pings, smears of pixelated colors, odd static, noise, bits of poetry; Hark! What light through yonder window breaks? It’s just the shadow of Norman Bates He holds...
Outland Hotel: A Room
Mandolin is about five feet four inches tall. His subservient size suits him. A bellhop is, after all, a servant. It might make some guests feel uncomfortable if he was too tall. It’s fortunate for Mandolin, and noble for he is so completely...
Outland Hotel: Voodoo Totem Man
I throw the door to room 431 open. I’m wilting molten glass. An instant change of air with the hallway rolls around me as blast furnace heat of the room escapes from itself. I begin to get dizzy and the hallway slightly dims. My hand connects with the...
Outland Hotel: Shadow Chase
“Is that a bullet hole in the hem of his jacket?” I hear one of the party people whisper behind me. My hand reaches instinctively for the hem, and the party revelers break out in hysterical laughter. I feel duped. How do they know about the desert and...
Outland Hotel: The Library
Standing on top of a bookcase I survey a cavernous room filled with row after row of such bookcases. The rain in my clothes trickles off of me like a thousand runny faucets. The PLIT PLAT of water drops is almost deafening in the vault silent room. I...
Outland Hotel: Jeoff and Chef
Something about Blix is gravely disturbing. His eyes are very severe, and reluctant to make contact. I don’t trust him as far as I can spit. In the elevator down he delivers the following confession: “On a lark we called your wife and told her you were...
Outland Hotel: The Party
I explain to Jeoff what happened on the ledge outside the building. My clothes are wet and I feel uncomfortable. He takes me to a dark wood paneled room with a rack of clothes of all sizes and graciously helps me find some suitable replacements. He’s...
Outland Hotel: The Wife
The room key says 710, but the door has a faint shade where the “0” used to be. I can only guess what happened, perhaps it fell off. Maybe Mandolin took it. This wing of the hotel looks dingy and old. Cobwebs dangle from the hallway lights. The...
Outland Hotel: Expulsion from Paradise
The elevator ride down is long and slow and arduous for my emotions. I find myself seesawing between my guilt and a sense of impending doom, and profound release. The elevator on the 7th floor wasn’t working, so I had to look around to find another unit...
Outland Hotel: Mogul
“No one has ever beaten Mogul.” I hear someone say as Jeoff drags me off the elevator. The thought goes by without a flag and disappears. At the moment I am complaining to myself about Jeoff’s vice-like grip on my hand. And I am wondering why he is...
Outland Hotel: The Banquet
I’ll be damned to hell for this, no escaping. I’m ready, I say - stupid me, a cockroach walking into a roach motel. Nothing can save me now. I’m ready. I’ve fucked everything. And everything up! And now I’m just ready to walk straight into hell’s...
Outland Hotel: Tempus Ex Machina
Somewhere beyond this room a drum rolls and crescendos into a cymbal crash. The chandelier above my head dims and spotlights crisscross the room, making an even greater spectacle of the horrors around the table in front of me. I freeze, thinking that...
Outland Hotel: The Last Crisis
I slip out a back exit from the Old Man’s apartment and jigsaw my way through the dazzling maze of hotel corridors, and pass a massive set of carved doors on my way into a brilliantly lit stain glass chapel, abandoned and ancient in years. Puddles of...
Outland Hotel: Puzzling Remains
When the elevator doors open we are confronted by Blix and Mandolin, looking like two cats which have just devoured their prey. Scattered round the lobby of the hotel are the entire force of FBI goons, Brutus, and Chef Black, all covered in dust and...
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