Enigma of Initial Curiosity

Hello E1~!

This season's postcards will correspond naturally as the encroaching darkness of equinox head-ons into another solstice bender after clinking too much of its own mulled Kool-Aid. & so it goes, as deciduous economists sing in diminishing quarters of romanticized light: The show just must go on . . .

. . . into autumn: that unsettling three-point period which falls on its paranormal tail end haunted by vegetable effigies who burn with election pranks & holy sales spree parades spent passing the last portion of daylight savings over a calendar-load of traditions to fill-up bobbing for gravely closer meaning with distant acquaintances & other moaning wraiths of devoutly national & personal upbringings. But, most consequentially, it's a divine occasion as a whole to sport a wider variety of festive maskings. Arise, revelers! — the days abbreviate our precious times like restless souls with mysteriously~approximate personal initials.

I'll kickoff by revealing something of myself: from childhood on, I fantasized of being a private detective — the classic kind from books & movies. It was never suggested as a possible goal by any of life's coaches perhaps not familiar with the field of noir careers, but there were training course ads in the back of magazines. I never enrolled in any, though; it seemed like something I could just do, on & in, my own elementary way. Upon reflection now, maybe I later unconsciously employed the dream by proxy: decades of lone travel, parking myself any somewhere in ongoing review; letting imagination take the notes however it still sees fit. The driven spectrum of Chaos is a vast color wheel, making anything possible, really, spread in static chops, collected into lively regenerating patterns of Art beyond our conceptualized limits.

            Roughly a year ago to this day, my phone began to slow-drizzle a cryptic serial doodle. As continuous travel restrictions have diluted the once-actual mobile observation platform, impatience has been laid to rest by expecting virtually nothing. So, when anything at all appears on the palette it comes feeling as a scratch-off lottery ticket mailed by a redacted source.

In this case, it has paid out with incoming installments of wrong-number messages that I, at first, wrote off but didn't delete from my cell because I tend to store/hoard curious objects with the belief that most things eventually surrender to use like falling particulates which, over time, design a plot you didn't necessarily see coming.

With subjective introductions filtered into ~'d initials, let's investigate together, courteously transcribed here, beginning:

10/13/21 4:01PM VOICEMAIL

"Good afternoon Mr S~."

            I picture the caller's voice as that of a high school honor roll student running for class vice-president who is also a trusted last-minute babysitter. Her multi-syllable customer surname enunciation rolls off the tongue in the manner of a last-chance second honeymoon coastal resort LLC or secret second-family getaway hamlet near the equator.

"This is J~ calling from the C~ Hotel reception."

            J~'s name itself is heard like it should be in quotation marks as a "just-call-me" version between their legal first & last — commonly passed off on, namely, realtor & insurance broker business cards.

FYI: The C~ Hotel is materially located in a major US city which is held up as a worldly five-star metropolis but is generally more of a one-star attraction if you survey the boots-on-the-ground urban survivalists who serve it under the burden of a legendary city pride born & misconceived by cultural tourism myths propped up like a movie set facade beacon of self-grandeur — yet, in real life, is actually soldiered by mostly month-to-monthers at best whose self-worth is more in their ability to skyscrape by at all.

Online, the hotel describes itself as "luxe lodging" with "elegant suites . . . upscale dining . . .  & a spa." The daily room rates currently average between the mid-eight-hundreds well into the one-thousands (assumed at this writing date as sporadically lower pre-fête pricing).

"I just wanted to reach out to you. I'm aware that our colleagues have set up a room for you today. We do have that room ready on the third floor. Whenever you are available please give me a callback. You can stop by the desk and pick up the keys and we can send the bellmen up to remove all the items from 1### and put . . . place them into your new room."

            Already, something has happened before this initial communication. My imagination automatically accelerates into antecedent-search-&-rescue mode. I have many questions:

Was this storied "lodging" not as "luxe" as expected? &, since this a voice message, I also wonder if it's "the bellman" or "the bellmen" — how much luggage could this individual possess to be assigned the predeterminer "all?" Is it a single-tipped job for one or a shared split tossed to a team of "colleagues?"

Additionally, was the relocation request a hasty reaction or something that occurred after a preoccupied period of time to judge the "luxe"ness as in need of a lower-floor upgrade? Just how long — minutes?-days? — has this guest suffered their tenth floor bed of roses?

"Alright, have a good rest of your day and look forward to seeing you soon. Bye-bye."

            It's too early for "upscale dining" so perhaps the guest is pampering in the "spa" to "rest" until a more "luxe" accommodation is arranged. Maybe they have hot rocks on their back & can't reach for their cell or didn't hear it at all due to hi-fi crashing surf loops cranked from a white noise machine.

Wed 1/26/22 7:39PM VOICEMAIL

"Good evening Mr S~."

            My first next concern here: has this same guest been there continually for over three months since our primary introduction or is this another, separate stay? Regardless, I wonder what they were up to here or there?

This second novel vocalization of Mr S~, now by a different desk clerk, projects a new image of something like the central plaza district of a city named after a religious figure whose likeness cake-tops an eighteenth century roundabout fountain. The caller's voice seems unsure, like he's cold-call filling in blanks on a FAQ form-script.

"This is F~ calling from the C~ Hotel. I'm just . . .  uh . . .  calling you about . . .  regarding your . . . uh . . . situation?"

            Okay, F~, you've got my full attention. F~ sounds nervous, as if the defined circumstances of the "situation" shouldn't be uttered aloud, denoted by the question-marked inflection at the end.