|
Hotel Sanitarium
by James Rogol
"Welcome to Hotel Sanitarium! You will have a luxurious room with six padded walls covered in the finest velvet we could find. Your suite also includes no windows and no doors! Have a wonderful stay, and if there is a problem, please do not hesitate to scream, although no one will hear you through the eight inch steel walls and the fourteen inches of padding covering them. Thank you for your time."
These were the words I heard when I awoke this morning. I have absolutely no clue why I'm in this insane little hotel. How I even got in this room is a mystery, considering it has no entrance, at least I don't think it does. Looking around my new home, I noticed an ornate object suspended from what might have been the ceiling (although there was nothing to differentiate the wall from the ceiling from the floor). Bouncing over to get a better viewpoint, I noticed that the object was an air freshener. It was in the shape of an evergreen tree, and was off- white, or stucco, or mother of pearl, or......well, it was of one of those hues. A sweet, vanilla scent was emitted from the ornament.
Suddenly, a fully padded chair rose from beneath the decorative air freshener. I took advantage of the first sign of anything but navy blue velvet and the air freshener. So, I sat, and pondered over how I was brought here. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, I could not think of the past. The chair mesmerized me and my thoughts. The way it swallowed its occupant with its ugly, bright, lime-green velvet covering that was horribly out of sync with the rest of the navy blue room with aquamarine, magenta, and peach plaid buttons. I sat in the chair for a lengthy, but indefinite, period of time.
A bell rang, removing me from the mystical chair's hypnotic trance. With a hydraulic hiss of air, a box sprang up from a previously unseen opening next to the previously unseen chair. Getting out of the chair, I knelt down next to the box and started to examine it. During my inspection, I found that this box could open. Being my usual curious self, I opened it. Inside, there was a spectrum of colors painted on the inside. "Ooh, what perdy colors," I said to myself. I also noticed that inside the box there was a nifty little clock, along with cream-of-brownie soup (so that I could tell time, as well as enjoy a meal). I forced myself to eat the soup (and the frosting), and placed the clock against a wall after enjoying my meal as best I could.
Soon after setting the clock in it's rightful spot, I was soaked in water. I looked up, and saw a porcelain sink with brass handles and faucet on the ceiling. I looked around, and the chair was gone, along with the box, so I decided that I would try to reach the sink. Running at top speed, I threw my self into the padded wall, and was rocketed towards the opposite wall, and continued upwards, bouncing of the walls, until I reached my goal. Amazingly, I stood next to the faucet. I turned on the water (which shut itself off after drenching me), and cupped my hands so that I could drink. While quenching my thirst, I heard a faint sound coming from the opening to the drain whenever water flowed down. Listening more carefully, I heard a little man speaking words of wisdom, the most memorable one being "The people in white coats are your friends." I slowly worked my way back to where I was originally (having the sink above my head), and looked at the clock. I had spent at least an hour at the sink, although as I started my ascent, the clock turned from 10:79 to 1:00, and as I returned, it was 2:04.
Following my little excursion to the sink, I turned around, only to have my vision blurred by a giant, green blob. And this blob was no ordinary blob. It was translucent, and was flubbing towards me at an astonishingly slow pace giggling as is moved. I stood frozen for a while, until I finally was courageous enough to charge the enemy "thing." I went right through the blob, which ended up to be
Jell-o, and turned around. I did not feel the indescribable sensation of poking a finger into Jell-o, and there was no hole. Concluding that the Jell-o was just a holographic projection, I returned to my "favorite" chair, where I ate my next meal from the box.
Upon finishing my cream-of-lollipop soup, a bureau sprang up in front of my chair. The chair sank from underneath me, and I fell to the cushioned ground. I trotted over to the piece of light blue furniture, and noticed the intricate pattern carved into it by an experienced artisan, whose cuts were inlaid with fine gold. I opened the doors, and saw that I could fit inside with room to spare. Stepping into the vast interior, the doors closed behind me, leaving me in total darkness.
Soon after, a flicker of light entered my eyes as they opened slowly. I found my self in a house on a farm, which appeared to be in the Midwest. I peered through the window, and viewed the farmyard. It was full of barnyard animals, but they were not normal. Instead of their normal hues, they were multicolored, and some were tye-dyed. Looking around the room, there was a porcelain sink in one corner, a nifty clock on the table beside the bed, a bowl of lime Jell-o on the same table, and a lime green chair next to the bed. "You were there! And you, and you, and you were there," I exclaimed. I leaned over to check the clock, and noticed a small slip of paper. It read: "Hotel Sanitarium. Receipt for Services. Cream of Brownie Soup $5.36. Cream of Lollipop Soup $6.354. Clock $10.00. Nightly fee $927.47 x 1. Total $4,936.184. Please pay soon." Oh Well.......
Critiques:
-This is a good story; however, there are a few
things that I think could be improved. First of all,
you switch tenses - this adds to confusion, which,
although it is the point of the story in a way, is not
good. Secondly, you use the word "amazingly" in the
middle of the fifth paragraph and, even though it is
gramatically correct, I'm not sure you wouldn't be
better off with the word "amazed". Thirdly, I had to
change the word "fudged". It just doesn't mean what you
wanted it to mean! (He had used it in place of "forced",
for anyone who isn't privy to this debate.) I do think
the idea, descriptions, and creativity are wonderful,
however, and certainly characteristic of your writing.
Send an open critique
Send a private critique
|