Hotel Purgatory
Joshua Long
I am dead, like really dead, not breathing, no heartbeat kinda dead, but it’s okay. Life goes on. Well, not for me obviously. In hindsight my living life was pretty boring; I never knew love or adventure or went outside my bubble. But that hasn’t been the case for my death.
When I was alive, I never believed in the concept of an afterlife; let alone, one that’s utterly nonsensical. But once I died, there I found myself, in the strangest place imaginable, a hotel lobby.
It looked to be an old one as well, the floors were cherry stained planks with lots of worn out carpets strewn about. There were half broken wingback chairs here and there, and a concierge desk sat in the corner with cobwebs and a dust covered sign that read, “Be Back Soon.” The room was massive as well, not in terms of length or width but in height. It went on seemingly forever; it eventually just faded into blackness.
The entire room was truly an architectural and engineering marvel; it seemed to defy the laws of physics. Not only did it stretch upward for eternity but the walls were all off in some way; they leaned this way or that, in and out, some of them formed waves. It was like being in some wildly nauseating fun-house.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do; I just stood in one spot, taking in the whole scene. And as I looked around the room, I noticed a plethora of people who looked as confused as I was feeling.
I took a step toward the gentleman closest to me, but before I could say anything, there was a sudden voice that echoed around us. It was a pleasant, slightly robotic sound, “Will all new arrivals please report to the check in desk for processing. Thank you.”
Positioned almost straight ahead of me was a long counter stained the same color as the floors, and behind it was a sign with the words “Check In” written on it. I hadn’t noticed it before; had it been there the entire time?
Slowly everyone in the room started to drift to the check in desk; I tried my best to get there first. I hated waiting in lines and there were a ton of people all moving to the same place. Sadly, I was not first, nor second or third. I was way back, way, way back. This was going to be a long wait, so I instinctively reached into my pocket for my phone. I was dismayed to find that it wasn’t there. I frantically searched every pocket, all four in my slacks, the inner and outer ones on my blazer, and even the pocket on my button up. Nothing. No phone, no cash, no car keys, no wallet. It was all gone.
Did someone rob me? I guess it could have happened in the shuffle for the check in desk. I hope I had prepaid my reservation or I was going to be without a room. Did I even book a room? I couldn’t remember? Maybe work did? They kept me traveling, so it would make sense. But where was I? I couldn’t have gotten that drunk on the flight; I only remember having one beer. I reached out to tap the shoulder of the person in front of me. She was a petite woman, maybe of Native-American descent; she had beautiful black hair and was wearing a flight attendant uniform. She seemed familiar; she must have been on my flight. Surely she knew what happened.
“Excuse me ma’am? Do you know where we are? What’s going on?”
She jumped when I tapped her, and spun around to look at me. I could see now that she was younger than I was, maybe early twenties, and she had an engagement ring on her finger. It was nice too, very large diamond, “No, no I-I’m afraid I don’t. It’s all very worrying, isn’t it? I don’t have my luggage, I can’t find any of my ID’s,” Oh yeah, my luggage. I had a carry on and a computer bag when I got on the plane; where were they? Where was anyone’s luggage; the room was completely devoid of bags, “and worse yet, I couldn’t remember anything passed the safety spiel.”
A wave of worry washed over me now; I couldn’t remember anything beyond that moment either, “Th-thank you ma’am.”
Something was off. Something was really off.
I felt like an eternity had passed by the time I got to check in. I spent the entire wait biting my fingernails and tapping my feet. My mind was racing with dozens of explanations, each seemed just as stupid as the last.
A husky, nasal voice suddenly rang out, freeing me of my own thoughts, “Next!”
The voice came from the woman behind the check in counter, and I almost sprinted to her. Finally I could get some answers. But she was not what I was expecting. Her skin was dried, cracked and a really gross looking grey/green color. She wore a tattered and stained pale red pant suit with frilly lace around her neck. Her hair was stark white and grew in clumps, and the odor emanating from her was beyond disgusting. She smelled like she was made of mold; it had to be the worst thing I had ever had the displeasure to waft into my nostrils. She let out an exasperated sigh as she spoke, and made a small wave of her arm, “Welcome . . . to Hotel Purgatory.”
“Thank you, but where . . . did-did you say purgatory?” No, no that must be a silly name. This can’t be purgatory; I’d have to be dead to be in purgatory. I wasn’t dead. I was barely thirty. I couldn’t be dead; that would mean this was the afterlife, and I didn’t believe in that sort of thing.
Another sigh, “Yes sir. Purgatory.” She turned to an ancient computer in front of her, one of those bulky beige ones that could only use dial up, and began typing, “You’re dead. My deepest condolences.”
“No. No. I can’t be dead.”
She slowly rolled her eyes toward me and sighed again, “Denial. I assure you sir. You’re dead.” Back to typing. This had to be a dream, right? I couldn’t be dead. There’s so much I never got the chance to do; this had to be a mistake. I grabbed my wrist and tried to find a pulse. I couldn’t be dead. I just couldn’t be dead, “Are you Daniel Heathcliff Walker from Sacramento, California, born in North Carolina on September 2nd 1989 deceased somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on October 12th 2019?” There was no pulse. Oh my god. I was dead. Surely this was a dream? Or a coma? This was a mistake. It had to be a mistake; maybe there was someway I could come back to life. There had to be, “Sir, I need you to answer my question.”
“Yes! Yes-yes. That’s me. So I died somewhere over the Pacific? Oh God! Is-is there anything I can do? I don’t want to be dead! This has to be a mistake. It couldn’t be my time, not yet. Please! I’ll do anything.”
“Bargaining. That was quick.” She reached down under the counter and pulled out a large green packet labeled, “Hotel Purgatory: Eternal Itinerary.”
“Seriously, is there like a god around or something that can bring me back. I’d-I’d give them whatever they wanted. My house. My car. My soul.”
“Death is permanent, sir. Take this.” She slid the packet toward me, “Now go to conference room A for your orientation; it’s down that hallway on your left.”
“But-but…”
“All questions will be answered in the orientation.” She motioned to the hallway behind her, “Next!”
I found conference room A pretty easy. I didn’t know what to expect from it but definitely not an actual conference room. Grey walls, blue/grey carpet, and those uncomfortable cushioned chairs with metal sides that stack on top of each other, the ones every business has but no one knows where they come from. Everything in the room was oriented toward a cheap metal podium and the projector screen behind it.
There were dozens of people already seated, rifling through their packets. I found an empty chair and opened my own. Hopefully there were some answers inside it, but all I found was an old looking key, an 8 ½ by 11 inch piece of paper filled from margin to margin with random numbers, and the rest of the packet had a list of events. The events seemed odd too: bungee jumping for fun and profit, masonry 101, trial by fire (and we mean actual flames), and polka/hip hop: how to get an edge on the next great music genre.
Before I could continue reading the Eternal Itinerary, a disembodied voice spoke, “Ladies, gentlemen, everyone in between, and spirits and spooks of all ages, welcome to your afterlife! Now give it up for your orientation director, you know him from the hit prayer, Carmen Salaire, please welcome the magnificent, the powerful, the indecisive, Janus!”
A young man with wavy orange hair came running into the room and up to the podium. He was wearing a long toga with a purple sash across it. He was very handsome, baby faced, and he had this bright beaming smile “Oh thank you! Thank you. Please settle down. Settle down now everyone.” No one had moved or made a sound, “Yes it is we, Janus, god of beginnings, god of passages, god of duality, and yes, even…” he put fingers on either side of his mouth and pulled his lips down, imitating a frown “…god of endings. Endings like yours!” He let out a roaring, slightly condescending, laugh, “But hey! Every ending is just another beginning!”
Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, Janus’s head spun around a full 180 degrees to reveal another face. This one had dark brown hair and a big bushy beard. He had a long scar down one side, and his expression was that of a permanent scowl. The other face spoke in a gruff, harsh voice, “Or endings are just that. The end. Goodbye. No more.”
His head spun around again, back to the smiling side, “Don’t mind old sour-puss back there.” He let out that same condescending laugh, “For every rainbow, there’s a dark cloud, are we right or are we right?”
His head spun around again to Mr. Dark cloud himself, “Get on with it! We’re losing patience!”
And back to Mr. Rainbow, “It would be much easier if we weren’t constantly interrupting ourselves.” That laugh again, “Now, we’re sure you are all wondering what exactly is going on, huh? You must have innumerable questions, but that’s why we’re here, to go over everything you need to know to make a smooth transition into your afterlife.” He pulled out a small black remote from inside his robe and began randomly pressing buttons, “Now, how do we work this thing again?”
Mr. Dark cloud came back, “Let us do it! We always mess this up.”
“We can handle it, thank you.”
“We clearly can not or the projector would already be on.”
“We. Got. This.” There was a beeping noise and an image began to form on the screen, “See? We’re fine. Now, if we can just get everyone’s attention. We prepared a small PowerPoint, only 657 slides, to briefly go over the basics.” Another button was pressed and big purple letters appeared on a pink background that read “In the beginning,” Janus pressed the button again and a picture of the Earth dissolved onto the screen, “The universe was created a week and a half ago, which in Earth time would be, hmmm . . .”
“. . . roughly 4 billion years, and we can assure you it was by complete and utter accident. We were throwing this raging party; everyone was drunk on mead and nectar.”
“Oh, we weren’t that drunk, but we digress. Amidst all the dancing and . . .” he cleared his throat, “. . . lovemaking, an explosion occurred which formed the cosmos.”
“It was a baron wasteland, no water, no life, no hope; it was beautiful. But then the little miss perfect goddess, Mut, just had to go and create life.”
“And what a wonderful decision that was! With life, came jobs for all the deities . . .”
“We mean never ending responsibilities thrust upon us by, almighty, Amun-Ra for all eternity! Horus did not like that, let us tell you . . .”
“Well, as you can probably guess, Mut’s decision to create life left all of us deities a little . . . divided. Some gods, like Horus, Hades, Loki, Metzil, and many others were vehemently opposed to the idea, which is crazy because who doesn’t like responsibilities and order? But those deities left us and went off and did their own thing.”
“And by own thing, we mean the slow and deliberate destruction of humanity and all that is . . .”
“But like the almighty cockroach, you humans have been more difficult to destroy than they initially thought. Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Yeah, for them.”
Janus’s head spun and the orange haired face let out that laugh of his again; it left me feeling inferior, which since I was in the presence of a god, I guess I was, “Now, let’s get back to the presentation, shall we? Now the cosmos is divided into three realms, each ruled over by a group of deities . . .”
The orientation went on like this for a while, a long while. Janus kept arguing with himself and occasionally offering some snippets of information. Apparently, Hotel Purgatory was a holding facility for human souls to wait out their judgment day. Although the actual proceedings were kept secret, the deities would all gather and examine your life. They’d make a decision as to where your soul would move onto; they called it the white, black, and grey places. The page full of numbers in my packet was my place in line for judgment; we were told it could be a very slow process. My page had roughly 3,000 digits on it, and earlier that day, Janus told us they had judged numbers 198-201. So, “slow process” was a bit of an understatement.
Janus also told us that all life forms who possessed “souls” would end up in one of the three places, certain souls got to skip judgment: all animals, children under 13, and people who have shown extreme evil or extreme good all move on without stopping in the Hotel first. We were then given our room numbers and told the key in our packet would open the door. Janus sent us all into the adjoining conference room to meet “special representatives that will make your transition much easier.”
The room was filled with our family members, everyone had tearful meetings with grandparents, spouses, siblings, cousins, and as I stood there, searching the room, looking for the person who would greet me, I saw the flight attendant from earlier. She was kissing, rather passionately, a man who looked maybe a year or two younger than her. He was wearing a wedding band as well. I let out an audible “awww. . .” It was sweet. Well, it was only sweet if they were married in life; it was not sweet if this had been an affair type situation. Tough to tell really.
Before I could gather any more information on that subject, I was stricken by a familiar voice.
“Baaaaaaaaby!!” Nooooooooooo, anyone but her! Where was my nana? Where was my great aunt? Or even my cousin who died in an explosion at his meth lab! He’d even be better than her! Why her? Why? She grabbed my face and started to push my skin around, her sharp fingernails digging in with each movement, “Oh how I’ve missed! That! Face! That . . . skinny, skinny face. I swear you never eat; always so concerned with your appearance and not your health, and now look at you. Dead.”
“Hello mother.” She finally let go of me, and she was exactly as I remembered. Badly dyed blonde hair set in curls, thick cat eye glasses, bright blue eye shadow that went halfway up her forehead to the eyebrows she painted on. She was wearing her favorite oversized orange tie-dye shirt, and of course she had on her neon pink leggings.
“You’re not gonna give your long departed mother a kiss? Isn’t it bad enough that I died without you calling me in six months, off living some California fantasy, and now you won’t even kiss your own mother?” I rolled my eyes and gave her a peck on the cheek, “Oh thank you baby. Was that so hard?” She grabbed me tightly around the wrist and pulled, “Now come along or you’re going to be late.”
She dragged me out of the room and down the hall at a break neck speed, “Mother, where are we going?”
(From This Point Forward, everything has been revised. I’ve reordered scenes, added new ones)
“When I found out you had died, I signed you up for the Dead But Not Dead Single’s Mixer.”
I dug my heels into the grimy beige carpet and stopped us both in our tracks, “No, mother, I can’t go to that. I-I need time to adjust.”
“Always an excuse! Well, now you’re dead and out of them!”
“No! I don’t want to go. I just want to rest for a while. I’m so tired. I’ve had to process a lot today, and I just-”
“But baby, you died so young; it was bad enough you never gave me any grandbabies but you didn’t even marry, never even brought a nice boy home to see me, not even once.”
“I was always busy with work. I didn’t have the time to date.”
“Well, now you do!” She began pulling me again and then practically threw me into a room labeled Conference Room E.
It looked almost identical to conference room A, except this time the chairs were facing each other. I started taking in who was there. It was a lot of men; no, it was all men. Was this a gay event? Did the afterlife have gay events?
“No, Mother, I really don’t want to be here. Please, I want to leave.”
“Oh, poor baby.” She gently placed her hand on my cheek and stared lovingly in my eyes, “It’s not gonna happen. Bye.” She pulled the door shut just as the same disembodied voice from my orientation chimed in, “Ladies and . . . no wait, gentlemen and gentlemen, please take a seat and give a round of applause for the host of your event tonight. You know her from such classics as the Venus De Milo and the Birth of Venus; give it up for the ever so charming, ever so beautiful, ever so magnificent, ever so humble, geeze there’s like fifteen more of these, forget it, goddess of looooooove! Aphrodite!” Everyone broke out in thunderous applause as the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on walked into the room. He looked like a combination of Channing Tatum, Shawn Mendes and Shamar Moore. He moved with grace and confidence; he was poised and regal. And so freaking HOT! I was utterly smitten.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Maybe, just maybe I may even enjoy myself. I scurried to the closest seat I could snag next to this beautiful, amazing man.
“Hello everyone! Welcome to the “Dead But Not Dead, Single’s Mixer.” Some of you know me already, some of you intimately.” He winked at a tall muscle bound jock with slicked back black hair wearing jeans and a white T, “For those of you who don’t know me, which let’s face fact, everyone knows me, I am Aphrodite, or Venus if you’re Roman.” He winked again but this time at a gentleman wearing what appeared to be gladiator armor. But wait, how can he be Aphrodite, goddess of love, “Just to clear up any confusion for the newbies, I take the form of whatever traits you find most desirable.” Ask and ye shall receive! I guess that explains that, “Now the game is very simple, you will get five Earth minutes with each person, then I will ring a bell, those of you on, hmmm, let’s say the left side of the room will switch one seat in the direction of the most beautiful and perfect thing that ever graced the cosmos . . . me. Shall we begin?” She pulled a small gold bell from somewhere, perhaps nowhere, it just kinda appeared in her hand, and rang it.
In the hubbub of seeing Aphrodite, I hadn’t noticed the gentlemen sitting across from me; he was very gorgeous as well. He wore a tan suit that looked rather old fashioned, not Roman gladiator old fashioned but like 1800’s kind of old. He was staring right at me with his big baby blue eyes, and when he spoke, I was struck by a life-altering grin, “Nice to meet you. I’m Eli.”
“Nice to meet you as well. I’m Daniel.”
He held out his hand and I gripped it; I noticed that his hands were rough to the touch, which was odd; why would a dead man’s hands be rough? Do we carry over all of our physical traits when we die? If so, then why? And what did he do when he was alive to make his hands so rough? Maybe I shouldn’t lead with that question.
We shook for a moment and quickly let go.
Then we proceeded to stare at each other in silence for several seconds; I had no idea what to say. All my normal conversation starters wouldn’t apply here, “So what do you do for a living?” That wouldn’t work; he’s dead. “Where did you go to school?” What did it matter now? He’s dead. “What are you looking for?” A pulse probably; because, he’s dead!
He was the one to finally break the silence, “So this is a little awkward huh?”
“Yeah, just a bit. I’m not at all sure what to say. This is my first day here.”
His eyes widened, “You died today and you’re at a dating event? You must process things quickly. I spent at least a year locked up in my room trying to cope with the fact that my life was over, and I kept examining every decision I had ever made. The unrelenting thought of where I would end up after my judgment day just weighed on me all the time.”
Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about that; where would my actions lead me? Was I too selfish in life? Should I have given more to charity or volunteered? Would the fact that I can’t stand my own family lead me to the dark place? How important was family to the deities? How many deities decided it? Could I bribe someone? What could I bribe them with? Would bribing a deity automatically send me to the dark place? What was going to happen? This was crazy; was I spiraling? It felt like I was spiraling! I couldn’t spend years with this much anticipation and anxiety. I needed to do something! Anything!
“I-I need to go!” I practically ran out of the room, and as I flew open the door, I heard Eli call out to me.
“I hope it wasn’t something I said!”
I hadn’t even gone three feet before bumping into my mother. Was she planning on waiting for me the entire event? For the first time in a long time, I was actually glad to see her, “Mother?”
“Baby, get back in there.”
“No. No. This-this is all too much. It’s all hitting me. I’m dead. I’m dead. I have actually died, and I’m going to be judged by these freaky deities . . .”
“Well freaky is kind of a harsh word baby.”
“. . . and what they think will dictate where I spend eternity! Aphrodite seemed completely self absorbed and Janus didn’t seem like someone who could make a simple decision, let alone something this important. I mean what kind of an afterlife is this? How-how am I supposed to deal with the worry and panic?”
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry.” She placed her hand on mine, “We all go through this. It’ll get better. You just have to keep going; keep moving forward. The Eternal Itinerary help, the events keep you busy and your mind off that kinda thing, events like the single-”
“I’m not going back in there. I refuse. It’s too much too soon.”
There were a few moments of silence between us before she finally spoke, “Ok, ok. I was wrong to try to push you into the single’s mixer this early. Perhaps first we should have gone to So you’re dead, now what? Or maybe I should have got you an After-life Coach. I really botched this up. I’m sorry baby.” My mother just apologized to me; that had never happened before, not once. It was a miracle; I suppose we were in the place for that, “Come along, let’s go to your room.”
We walked side by side down the winding hallways and narrow corridors of Hotel Purgatory. Every door was different and every hallway was as well. It was like we were shifting through all the decorative styles of history. One hallway had gold trim and wall-to-wall shag carpets, another was clad in wood floors, lit only by gas lamps.
“You know, baby, we have rooms adjacent to each other, isn’t that wonderful?”
“Oh! Yeah. It-it’s wonderful.” No, it wasn’t.
“Of course, we got your cousin Jeffrey between us, plays the rock and roll music as loud as can be, and all the people he brings over; in and out, in and out all day and night, I have no idea what they do in there, well I can guess, I was young once too, but the amount of people he sees is just shameful, if he wasn’t already dead, I’d swear he would be getting that HIV by now. Oh here we are!” She stopped us both in front of a familiar looking white door with a handwritten sign that read, “Stay out!”
“No, this can’t be my . . .”
“Old room! Surprise!” It was exactly like my childhood bedroom. Baby blue walls with white chair rail mold, posters of soccer and tennis players, even the small closet over flowing with art supplies, “Isn’t it great! Once you die, the place where you were most comfortable in life just . . . I don’t know . . . appears, with every possible detail. That’s how I knew you had died, I saw a new room appear and went to . . . inspect it, and it was my poor baby’s room. Everything is exactly as it was when you were alive, even down to that playgirl magazine you hid under your mattress, and before you ask, yes I knew about it. I found it when you were, gosh I don’t know thirteen/fourteen, but your father and me knew you were gay long before I ever found that magazine. The way you always wanted to be Supergirl and not Superman when you played with your brother; the way you used to style your sister’s hair. It was always so much better than either she or I could do it. I mean, I guess those are just stereotypes, but look at you now. Hey, young man, are you even listening to your mother? Hello?”
I had barely heard anything she had said; I was too distracted by my surroundings, “This. . . this is crazy.” I gingerly placed my hand on an old R/C race car that I had crashed into the stream behind our house when I was 12. I loved that old toy; I never thought I’d see it again, “OMG! They’re here too!” I nearly flung myself into the corner where they were all neatly set up in a row.
It was my collection of dolls! I had so many growing up, for every Barbie I had, there was a G.I. Joe as well. My father insisted. I picked up one of each. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun, and she was wearing matching camouflage pants and shirt, with a plastic rifle tucked under her arm. And he was wearing a pink dress with spaghetti straps that cut off right above his knees. I remember now, I used to love dressing them up in each other’s clothes. Joe really knew how to rock a cocktail dress for sure; he’d usually stay in the dream house with the kids while she was off leading her troops in whatever crazy war I would imagine up. It usually had something to do with the Teddy Bears insulting Joe’s outfits. Barbie was always very protective of him.
“You’ve had a long day baby. I’ll let you have some time alone. I’ll swing by in a little bit to check on you. Okay?” Was she actually giving me space? That was very odd; in life, she was the definition of a helicopter parent.
“Oh . . . sure! See you soon!” She smiled then pulled on the door, “Hey, I’m really happy to see you again. I’ve missed you.”
She ducked her head back in; she stayed silent for a moment then cleared her throat and swallowed hard before speaking, but even then, when she spoke, it was barely a whisper, “Me too, baby. Me too.”
She gently closed the door, and I put my dolls down and continued to explore the space, reacquainting myself with my old stuff. I realized it was the first time I’d been alone since I died, and wow, it was so peaceful.
I collapsed onto the bed. I didn’t know if you needed sleep when you’re dead, but I felt like I could manage it for a few decades. This day had been utterly exhausting.
I felt my eyes getting heavier and heavier; apparently you do sleep when you’re dead. I could feel the calmness and quiet of these familiar surrounding wash over me; a good rest was exactly what I needed.
Just when I was about to pass out, at that moment when everything was slipping away, I heard thumping, a wall shaking kind of thumping, followed closely by the sound of an electric guitar and an ear shattering scream. I jumped straight out of bed. It was music! Heavy metal! And it was coming from the room next door!
I balled up my fist and started pounding against the wall, “Jeffrey! Turn it down! Turn! It! Down! You meth loving redneck!”
No matter how hard I pounded on the wall, the volume didn’t drop a bit. I don’t think he was able to hear me or if he did, he didn’t care.
I flopped back onto my bed, placed the pillow over my face and let out the loudest scream I could manage. I let out every thing I had, every bit of anger, confusion, and grief I had built up throughout the day; I let it all out. I used to do this a lot as a teenager, so I knew my pillow could handle it.
I screamed and screamed until my throat was raw.
God! No, wait . . . gods? This was going to be my eternity!
