The Hotel Ever Rest

This here, right here on this rocky outcrop, is Isami’s hotel.

Isami didn’t build it but it is his.

It is Isami’s hotel because all others who had taken up residency there had passed on long before.

It was Isami’s duty to maintain the upkeep of the hotel, as there was no one else to care for it.

Before the water came, the island was a mighty mountain, the tallest there ever was. Many people had great difficulty climbing the mountain and many had died trying.

Isami had often wondered why they had tried to complete such a difficult task. Surely the risk of death is not worth reaching the top of a mountain?

The old people had spoken of their old people who had said “Sometimes all you can do is do”.

Isami did much doing. The hotel was all Isami knew and though he cared for its upkeep, he did not love doing so.

Although the hotel was devoid of guests, Isami found himself constantly busy. Fixing leaks, painting walls, dusting the ornaments and tending the vegetable patch were arduous, momentary antidotes to the boredom and more importantly, to the loneliness.

Isami knew one day he would pass on but he hoped with all his might it would not be in his hotel.

The water around the island grew higher with every passing day, as the markers Isami placed by the waterside slowly became submerged one by one.

He calculated it would be under a year before the hotel and all it contained was washed away.

Mainly for that reason, Isami had never stepped foot in the water, even on the hottest of days. His understanding was that the water was the end and he did not fancy an end from the water.

Isami would often dream of a land far away, far from the island, yet close to others. He didn’t know where it was but he knew it must be somewhere out there, beyond the water and beyond the island.

His understanding was that if the stars could exist suspended like they were then anything was possible.

In between his imaginings of a better place he would prepare the hotel for guests who never came.

One day, during a moment of rare relaxation, Isami was reading his favourite book of great adventure when there was a knock at the front door.

He was seized with fright and the book fell from his fingers. Could it be? A guest? At last? He shot to his feet and tiptoed to the front door, peeping through the peephole.

Standing on the other side of the door was a tall figure in a silver space suit, complete with a large helmet and gleaming visor.

He had seen such beings in old books and was awed at the sight of this striking figure. With bated breath, Isami summoned all his courage and opened the door.

The figure stood seven feet high, so tall that he blocked out the sun’s rays behind him. The pair looked at each other in silence; it was as if time stood still.

“Can I help you?” Isami asked, his first words to another in many years.

“I am here to perform my duty” the spaceman replied, with a peculiar mechanised voice.

“This is the Hotel Ever Rest” Isami found himself saying.

“I must build a ship. Have you any wood?”

“I have a small forest behind the hotel; you are welcome to the wood”

The Spaceman stood in silence, light refracting off his radiant silver suit, this way and that.

“You are most welcome to stay – let me show you around.”

Isami stepped aside and ushered in the Spaceman. The Spaceman endeavoured to enter through the door but his immense height made it impossible for him to do so.

“I do not bend” the Spaceman said in a low drone.

“No matter” Isami replied. “I am Isami, what is your name?”

The Spaceman stood in silence.

“What can I call you?”

“I am to do my duty”

“Then I shall call you Duty”.

Isami led the way through the vegetable patch behind the hotel, turning every now and again to look at his new companion.

The Spaceman marched on through the greenery in a way that suggested to Isami he had never set foot on land before – which, Isami surmised, may well have been true.

The pair reached the small forest before too long and stood in silence amongst the ancient trees. The vast trunks soared high into the sky, the gentle breeze whistled through the boughs and branches as Isami snuck looks at the Spaceman and wondered if he appreciated such a fine setting.

“This is my forest” Isami said with pride, “It has been here ever since I can remember. It serves a simple purpose, one I am not sure of but if you need the wood to build your ship, then you are welcome to it”.

The Spaceman reached out and his metallic gloved hand stroked the trunk of a mighty oak. “Everything must pass” the Spaceman asked.

“True – though perhaps it has had enough of being in one place and will enjoy its new life as part of your ship. You are welcome to every tree but one – do you see that gnarled old pine yonder?”

The Spaceman turned in the direction indicated.

“That is Old Bess. It is a special tree, dear to me and to all the others that came before me.”

The Spaceman walked towards Old Bess; it was dark grey, calcified, and its bare, twisted branches curled out towards the sky. Isami bowed his head.

“This is where those before me rest”

“You don’t rest here?” the Spaceman asked.

Isami looked up. “Not yet” he replied.

The following day the forest was no more. The trees, all but for Old Bess, were cut down and their trunks lay in neat stacks, spread over the churned earth.

Isami provided lemonade and sandwiches but the Spaceman knew not what to do with the offerings. “I am here to do my duty”, he would say and that would be all.

Isami would sit and watch the Spaceman cut and trim the trunks into broad planks. Even though the pair rarely spoke, it was a great delight for Isami to share his island with this mysterious being.

At night, the Spaceman’s suit would shut down and he remained still until morning when the sun came up again and recharged his batteries.

Isami would wake at dawn to witness the Spaceman return to life and carry on trimming and sawing and hammering and constructing his ship.

“Why did you come here?” Isami asked the Spaceman one morning.

“To do my duty”

“Where did you come from?”

The Spaceman pointed to far beyond the horizon.

“Can I go with you when you leave?”

The Spaceman did not answer and carried on with his construction.

As the light from the sun was the source of his power, on cloudy days the Spaceman would remain still. Isami would continue the work on the ship and brush the wood chips and dust from the Spaceman’s suit.

The ship was nearing completion and Isami knew it would not be very long before the Spaceman left the island. “How will you propel your ship?” Isami asked.

“It will find its way” the Spaceman replied.

“I don’t want to be alone.” Isami said.

“Perhaps it is your duty?”

“I have enough duties around here – all I wish for is to be somewhere else and to rest there”

“All things must pass” the Spaceman replied.

“That is something I know all too well.”

The Spaceman pointed towards the sun.

“That too has passed”

Isami blinked at the sun but did not understand.

“The light you see is a memory. In time the memory will fade and I too will pass.”

Isami turned from the sun, picked up a hammer and looked at the Spaceman. “Then you must finish your ship, I will help you.”

“It is my duty to build the ship.”

Isami threw his hammer to the ground.

“What of my duty? Must I man this hotel, day in day out, until the water rises and the sun fades? What of me then? "

The Spaceman remained silent.

“You may not be human but you cannot be as inhumane as to leave me here! This place and its upkeep is all I know and soon it will be all I will ever have known. I cannot rest with the rising water and now the passing sun - Please, I implore you, take me with you!”

“I cannot take you with me for I am not going anywhere” the Spaceman said.

“But what of this ship?”

“It is my duty to build the ship, it is your duty to drive it.”

Yet another sleepless night seemed to go on forever until Isami realised the sun was to not rise again.

As the encroaching water lapped against the front door, Isami gathered up his last vegetables and waded to the ship where the Spaceman sat against it, motionless.

Isami tried his hardest to push, lift and carry the Spaceman into the ship but his bulk was too great. Isami sat inside the ship as the final tide lolled in and carried the ship upon its back.

As the ship drifted off into the everlasting night, it bobbed against Old Bess, caught in one of her twisted branches.

Isami felt around in the dark for the branch and gently wrestled with its grasp.

“Goodbye, Old Bess and goodbye my island.”

Isami cracked the branch, freed the ship and a small, surging wave pushed the vessel in an unknown direction out into the dark.

Isami sat in blackness, rising and falling with the current and for the first time in a long time, he wept.

Isami woke in fright, a dream again of the Spaceman. He found it even harder to sleep on the ship as he did on the island. The waves would spurt up and over the hull, drenching him with every rise and fall of the ship.

Lack of rest aside, Isami had two vegetables and a blanket and was grateful he was alive. The sound of the water was different from the sounds of the island. The constant soft patting of waves against the hull made him feel less alone and the stars, so many stars, never faltered in blinking over him.

He had read books about ships long ago being guided by the stars but he did not know how to use them in this way. Nonetheless, he appreciated their shine and twinkling, the only lights remaining in these strange, ever dark surroundings.

Isami was near sleep as he was jolted awake; the ship had come to a standstill. It lay against a massive glass tower that shone with a dull blue light. Isami climbed upon thick, glass rungs, high up upon the tower.

At the top of the tower was an opening; Isami edged his way down towards the blue light. Isami climbed down beneath the waves and the light grew brighter as he edged closer until he was in a large, glass, cavernous room under the sea.

Blue luminescent jellyfish swam about the walls, lighting up what seemed to be a vast gathering of Spacemen.

A Spaceman approached Isami and asked him of his duty.

“I feel I have done enough for ten lifetimes, may I rest here a while?”

The Spaceman ushered him to an area away from the other Spacemen and Isami lay down.

He watched the glowing jellyfish dance to and fro, their long and delicate tendrils rising and falling with a force well beyond themselves.

“Have I passed?” Isami asked the Spaceman.

“There is no passing here, only duties” he replied.

“Then it is my duty to close my eyes and rest a while”

“So be it” the Spaceman said and left Isami lying there as he began to dream of Old Bess and a blossoming floret on her farthest branch.