The Phantom of Liberty

I don’t know why, but I’ve had a short story brewing in my mind, and I feel like writing it on my blog, feel free to tell me what you think, I’m up for criticism. Here it is:

In the St. Range hotel and bar, there are five workers, only five. There is the manager, George Ives; the waitress, Kathy Hunt; the bellboy, Henry Simms; the bartender, August Moore; and finally the attendant, Nathan Brish. At the moment, there are seven guests staying at the hotel. Their names are: Paul Flange, Orville Kanny, Mr. and Mrs. Ghar, Molly Therman, Austin King, and Joseph Washburne. All of these people have one thing in common, and that one thing is what drives them to live.

After arriving, Mr. and Mrs. Ghar decided to go to the bar, leaving their room unattended. When they returned, they found there the dead body of Austin King. Appalled, they first called the manager, who in turn called the police. Once the police arrived, they took names and cleaned up the room, Mr. and Mrs. Ghar left the hotel, never to return(later they both went into a deep depression and killed themselves in their sleep).

That left only ten people in the hotel. Oddly enough, no one except the manager knew what had happened, and he wanted to keep it that way. The next day, Joseph Washburne and Molly Turner met to have a drink.

“How old do you think I am?” Joseph said.
“Old enough for the both of us,” Molly giggled.
“Well, at least I’m not too young for this,” Joseph said raising a glass to toast.
“I second that,” Molly said, meeting Joseph’s glass.
“Listen, about last week-”
“No, Joseph, there’s no need, that’s said and done, and there’s nothing I can do to get it back.”
“I know, but you loved it… aren’t you at least going to try for another?”
“No need, I’ve decided they’re too much work and too much pain. I think it was good that I lost that one… I don’t think it would have lived anyways.”
“Oh well then, would you like to join me tonight?”
“Sure Joseph, I have nothing else to do.”
“Alright then, it’s set.”

Molly and Joseph walked out of the bar leaving August alone. She cleaned the glasses as usual, thinking of the life she could have had, long ago she had a husband, a daughter, a good career… but one day she was framed for murder and sent to jail. Her husband hanged himself, and their daughter was in an orphanage somewhere in Phoenix. She wept, cleaning the tears off the glass as they fell.

That night, Joseph was found dead, this time it looked like suicide. Molly was shaken, there was nothing she had left in the world. The police informed her it was just a suicide, but she pleaded otherwise.

“Joseph was a happy man,” said Molly.”In fact, when he left my room, he was the happiest he had ever been, please look into it some more, please!”
“It is an odd coincidence, ma’am, that two people would be found dead in the same hotel in two nights,” one of the policemen said. “But we have many other cases to work on at this moment, and we can’t investigate a suicide if that’s all we have to go on.”

Molly stayed in her room for the next few days. While she was in there, everyhting in the hotel seemed to slow down, no one died, no one left, no one had any troubles. It was like nothing happened.

(more to come later)

~ by mastercyclon on April 20, 2008. Tagged: Bored