no mirrors part 3

8/9/2019 No Mirrors Part 3

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"No Mirrors"

by Riley Hamilton, the author of the novel-in-progress "I Used To Be Much Younger" and thescreenplay-in-progress "Tweeps"

"[Riley Hamilton's] writing is impressive" - R.L. Stine

She was hassling him again verbally on the phone, embarrassing herself."Why don't you get away and write that novel you've been talking about for two years,"

she said."It hasn't been two years, Mom. Are you trying to sound like an old, crazy woman?" He

said, flexing his biceps."I just want my baby boy to be happy. As much as you joke, Jonah, I am getting old. I

can feel it all around me. I'm not as fast as I used to be. You should see how I walk.""Mom, you are still so fast, " Jonah giggled. "Remember when I was complimenting you

about how fast you were running down the stairs the last time I visited? I wasn't justmaking conversation. You were as fast as lightning. I've never seen a 55-year-old womanmove like that."

Jonah pulled the phone away from his right ear because she had started to cry. He

checked in a few moments later to make sure she was done and then resumed theconversation. "I think you're right. I can take this time to finish that novel. They gave methree weeks' pay as severance and that will go a long way around here."

"A long time," she said, trying to hold back her tears. "I want you to be happy, Jonah.I've never heard you happier than when you were describing your little book to me. 'TheBeautiful Friends,' that's what it was called, right?"

Jonah giggled again. "Right, mom. 'The Beautiful Friends.'"

--

After hanging up with his mother, Jonah took a long look at his apartment building. Itlooked like Satan had taken a big shit there. There were bare white walls and nothing thatscreamed, "This is Jonah's Home!" Even his multi-colored drapes looked like one of themost boring things ever created. He grabbed a two-liter bottle of soda out of the fridge andpolished it off.

"I love soda but it does notlove me," Jonah said before sighing loudly. The sound sodamakes when it goes down your throat was in full effect that day. The carbonated syrupswished in his belly and Jonah laughed loudly. A boisterous laugh that was rare coming froma sourpuss like Jonah. Something about the loud laugh reverberating off the walls gaveJonah the courage to go for it. To do the thing he had always dreamt about. To get awayfrom the city of Juniper and try to write that novel. Jonah let out a high-pitched squeal atthe thought. In a hotel, Jonah thought suddenly. One with a nice big view of trees andsquirrels. A ways off in a small town. The words would flow like sweet honey. He had moneysaved up, three weeks' of severance pay and the rent was squared away. A change ofscenery was what Jonah needed. A little getaway would make him become the superhero

writer he knew he could be. And he went for it.

--

Jonah packed two bags and threw away some things in the fridge that would go badwhile he was gone. One of his bags held his clothes and the other was for his toothbrush,hair gel and other hygienic products. He said goodbye to his apartment but left with a smileon his face. He quickly got into his car and started it up. Jonah drove. As he picked upspeed, he stuck his head out of the car window and opened his mouth as wide as it wouldgo. His blond hair dipped and dived with the wind. He quickly tucked his head back in


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because he had lost full control of the car. Once he had been on the highway for aroundthirty minutes he started to look at his choices and finally made his selection. He had settledon a town called Prescott. Prescott almost rhymes with biscuit, Jonah thought. Heimmediately pulled over and wrote that down in his notebook. He would have to rememberthat. Jonah had yet to realize that this sense of inspiration and wonder that he had beenfeeling since he left his apartment and the town of Juniper would soon be replaced with a

fear like nothing he had ever experienced.

END OF PART 1

---

BEGINNING OF PART 2

It was called the Sweet Sister Inn. Just off the main exit to Prescott. The Inn was nestledinto a pair of giant trees that had taken the old structure hostage over the years. A signnear the front of the Sweet Sister indicated that parking could be found in the back of thebuilding, up a wide driveway that circled around the property. Jonah drove around into thedriveway and parked his car, noting that there were only two other occupied spots. That's

strange for an Inn but who am I to pass judgment on an establishment I'm barely familiarwith, Jonah thought, remembering his mother's teachings as if she was right next to himwhispering them in his ear.

He shuffled his feet towards the door of the old Inn, pausing to look out at the beautifulfront yard that spread for acres around. It was absolutely lush out there. It looked like overa thousand animals had crawled through its high grass at different points in the houses'history. Jonah stopped and thought about how many bunnies had probably been in all ofthat grass. And as if God had been listening to Jonah, a squirrel darted in front of him andthen scurried on its paws up one of the smaller trees that peppered the Prescottcountryside.

--

A bell above the door signaled Jonah's entrance into the lobby. There wasn't anyonebehind the check-in desk when he entered so Jonah used the time to take a look aroundand try to absorb as much of the atmosphere as he could with only one glance. He gave upeventually and ended up soaking up the atmosphere for longer than he had wanted to. Ifthe rest of the Inn looks like this lobby then it is a writer's wet dream, Jonah thought, andthen he let the idea marinate, until it gave his pale skin gooseflesh. The room was painted apale green color that was so out of date it looked trendy. On the walls were black and whitephotographs that looked like they had been hung up decades ago and each one wassporting a thick wooden frame. There were over ten hung photos on the walls at variousheights around the room and each one was of a close-up shot of a person. Jonah took acloser look and saw that each photo was of an old man smiling. But not the same old man.Each photograph had a unique elder in it. The one Jonah approached had a bald man in it

with a wide smile. The old man was smiling as if the photographer had just told one of thefunniest jokes anyone had ever heard. But the smile on the old man's face wasn't exactlypure joy. There seemed to be some hurt in there too. It probably wasn't a standard knock-knock joke, Jonah thought, and then quickly covered his mouth before a rumble of gigglescould escape his lips. He was having too much fun looking at this lobby to spoil it by havingthe Innkeeper hear him and rush him to his room. Once he had finished looking at thephoto he went to the one to the left of it. The old man in this photo looked more genuinelyhappy, the smile on his face came from natural causes, Jonah deduced. The man had bushyeyebrows that reminded Jonah instantly of his own grandfather, who had died over ten


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years ago:

His maternal grandfather was still a much talked hero for the family and not one holidaywent by without his mother bringing him up.

"My father was such a good man," she would say, trying to get attention from the family."We're all well aware, Mom," Jonah would say back, nudging whoever was closest to him.

Jonah was snapped out of his memory by the pearly white teeth of the man in the photo.What was it about this old man's face that gave Jonah such a strong case of the heebie-jeebies?Jonah had been in this lobby for over three minutes since the ringing of the belland he was ready for his presence to be known. Jonah cleared his throat loudly until hefinally heard some rustling from a closed door on the other side of the room. The dooropened widely and Jonah braced himself for the surprise of his lifetime. Before he couldeven properly prepare himself, the Innkeeper walked slowly into the room. The Innkeeperlooked like nothing Jonah had ever seen and that was putting it lightly. He was six feet tallwith a very pale complexion. He had scraggly facial hair that didn't have a start or endpoint. His clothes hung from his body loosely with not one thought about which colors wentwith which. And his shiny head was so smooth that it looked like hair had never touched it.Jonah grabbed his stomach because he felt instantly nauseous.

"Well hello there," the Innkeeper said, in a crusty voice that reminded Jonah of a meatgrinder at a sub shop. "Someone looks like they're ready for a long stay at the SweetSister."

Jonah had already fainted before the Innkeeper could finish his sentence.

END OF PART 2

---


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BEGINNING OF PART 3

After what didn't even feel like a minute later, Jonah was awake, lying on the floor of thelobby that he has just been admiring. The Innkeeper was over him, yelling and waftingsomething extremely fragrant under Jonah's nose. The Innkeeper reacted to Jonah's

awakening with a reassured sigh."I'm up, sir. Thank you," Jonah said.The Innkeeper kept his place for another few seconds but then slowly stood up and

offered a Jonah a helping hand to get off the floor. Jonah raised himself up and immediatelylent his hand out to the Innkeeper for a handshake. They shook.

"Thanks so much for your help. I don't know what happened to me. My name is Jonah,"he said.

"Don't worry about it," the Innkeeper said, "My name is Ralph. And this is my Inn."Jonah looked around at the lobby again as if he hadn't inspected it intensely just minutes

earlier. "It's beautiful in this place. How much is it a night?"Ralph walked slowly behind the check-in desk assuming his role. "I charge fifty dollars a

night and you get a free mint on your pillow in the morning!"Jonah hadn't been expecting comedy from Ralph so the surprise appearance of the joke

made him laugh twice as hard as it normally would. Ralph was laughing also, reticently atfirst but then he let it burst out like a geyser.

"Well, Ralph. I'm a writer and I'd like to stay here a few days and let my creative juicesflow in a nice place like this," Jonah said, still laughing from Ralph's pillow joke.

Ralph hadn't stopped laughing either but he spoke through the breaks in catching hisbreath. "You..wouldn't be...the only writer here," Ralph said. "We..have...plenty...of writer'scome and...do that."

"That's great news!" Jonah said, "I love being around other artists when I'm creating."Ralph nodded slowly after he had finished his laugh session and then went searching for

something beneath the front of the desk that obscured Jonah's vision. Ralph's long, thinarm reemerged with a set of keys attached to a large piece of wood with the number "6"carved into it. The sight of all that stupid shit made Jonah's penis shrivel up into a smallwalnut.

"I'll show you to your room," Ralph said, extending his arm out to hand Jonah the keys."Hopefully, you can meet some of the other guests later tonight. I'm sure they'll be sohappy to see you."

Something about Ralph's voice made Jonah want to run back to his car and grab the tunafish sandwich that he had left on the passenger seat accidentally.

--

He went into his room and set his packed bags down on the bed."It's going to be hard to get a boner here," Jonah said aloud to no one after looking

around at the less-than-stellar accommodations. The furniture in the room was sparse withjust the bed, a nightstand topped with a phone and a small wooden desk with a chair

accompaniment. The walls were the same light green color as the walls of the lobby. Therewas an open door which led to the bathroom that Jonah would be using to wash himself anddo things in the toilet. Jonah began to move quickly around his room, almost at a runningpace, breathing deeply and then letting the warm recycled carbon dioxide from his lungstrickle out of his nostrils. The drive had made Jonah sleepy and he started to look at thecrisply-made bed with the fluffy pillows longingly. Jonah had vowed though to at least get apage written before he let Mr. Sandman come and claim him for the night. Will I finally beable to write my novel here? Jonah asked himself. His stomach decided to answer thequestion for him and began to rumble like a disturbed bee's nest. The last thing thatJonah had eaten was cereal for breakfast. Me not eating anything since breakfast almost


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certainly explains my hunger, Jonah thought. It was almost six in the evening. Jonah satdown on the bed and reached for the phone and ordered enough room service food for twopeople.

He laid on the bed and began daydreaming about how to begin the story that had been inhis head for almost two years. Fifteen minutes passed by while Jonah struggled with theperfect word combination to illustrate what he was thinking. Jonah had just figured out a

perfect line to start his novel just as the room service professional knocked on his door. Hewrote it down quickly so he wouldn't forget it. It read: People of Earth, let me tell you mystory for my end is near and aliens are coming.

Jonah hustled to the door not wanting to give the hotel man the impression that he was atardy person that didn't play by the rules. In fact, Jonah was quite the opposite. He wasconstantly adhering to laws and social norms so much so that it made other peopleuncomfortable. When Jonah was younger he used to manufacture fake citations for hisfriends whenever they did something that was blatantly against the rules. If one of Jonah'selementary school friends got done eating a lollipop and threw the wrapper on the ground,they would find a note in their back pocket with the word Litterbug written in childish script.He had all sorts of notes, some indicating offenses that weren't even illegal like the timewhen little Bobby Sendak found a note in his pocket which said simply Toilet Clogger.

Jonah opened the door quickly, surprising the hotel dude on the other end. The door

opened wide to reveal an obese teenager in a suit carrying a large tray which held Jonah'sfood order. His name was Greg as evidenced by the nametag that hung on the right side ofhis suit. The smell of cheeseburger was practically as edible as the cheeseburger itself andGreg lifted his nose in the air like a wolf and said, "Well, if that doesn't smell delicious."Jonah, acknowledging that it really was smelling delicious, nodded and reached for hiswallet. But the back pocket which normally held his leather money-carrier was completelyempty!

--

Jonah froze, not admitting to himself what was happening. He had no way to pay for thecopious amount of food he had ordered at the height of his hunger. It was so quiet youcould hear the breeze come through the open window. Greg, the waiter, stood there withhis mouth agape, probably sensing what Jonah feared. Finally, after what seemed like threeminutes, Greg broke the silence with a string of stumbling words.

"Hi sir, I have your cheeseburger here. It comes out to seventeen dollars and fifty-threecents," he said, his arm straining under the weight of the tray.

Jonah tried to follow Greg's lead and speak but no words would come out. His mouth feltdry and his eyelids suddenly began to droop. The color began to drain slowly from the roombut Jonah bit his tongue to keep from passing out again. Jonah made a second attempt atspeaking but only a loud squeak came out. It became silent again immediately after andJonah wiped the sweat away from his forehead, thinking only about what a mistake he hadmade and what this portly room service attendant would do to him once he found out thetruth.

END OF PART 3

no mirrors part 3

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