June 13th

June 13th

In room 111 on the third floor of the MGM Grand hotel, dust gathers. It was an otherwise unused room, because it stands in a stark contrast with the rest of the hotel's lavish designs. One small window faces the brick wall of what Ben Fogel knew to be a neighboring pizza place. He had arrived roughly fifteen minutes ago and had just now finished unpacking. It was a business trip, and he didn't bring much. He came to Vegas to look at a promising new company in hopes to invest. He owned a small venture capitalist firm, and he was looking to expand. He was currently experiencing a fall of his stock prices, and so he had to subject himself to this pitiful standard of a room. 

Setting his suitcase on the floor he sighed. The furniture had to be fifty years old but without the classic quality of anything built half a century before. Ikea if it was established in the 40s, he thought to himself and chuckled. He still wouldn't pass up the chance to invest in Ikea though. Shoddy workmanship is a terrible thing, but self interest fares in any weather, and revenue is always a good excuse. 

Kicking his suitcase lightly under the bed, he sat down. The mattresses whined as he let his weight sink in. He ignored its pleas, rubbing his face in exhaustion. His idle hands quickly found a dusty brochure lying on the bedside table. He needed something to occupy himself, he found sleep came quicker that way. The tv appeared to be older than the furniture and didn't seem a viable option. He flapped the booklet ridding it of accumulated dust. What hotel leaves their paraphernalia undusted? Brushing away the thought  he examined the cover. It showed a man and a woman, a couple presumably, both in very good shape, with a subtitle that read “welcome to paradise, please visit our general store at the back lobby for memorable gifts for your lucky spouse and kids!”. 

Ben grunted with displeasure. It had been a while since he visited his own wife and kids, and he and Beth weren't in nearly as good shape. He started seeing them less and less, since it was clear his firm needed a strong resourceful leader like himself, and the company always took precedence, despite his wife's feelings to the contrary. He had been doing business ventures for almost 30 years now, and a man of his age, 65, really should have retired long ago. But it wasn't really up to him. 

He had a short attention span, and he never pursued the same thought for very long. Besides, there was no point in revisiting such topics. He believed in work. He had always maintained that and as years passed the tunnel grew thinner when it came to beliefs and foolish dreams.

 His eyes drifted upwards, and as they did he felt something slide out of the brochure and onto his lap. It was a miniature photograph, probably taken from a polaroid camera pretty recently because the film was still in excellent condition. It was a blurry and somewhat distorted image of a woman and child taken from a strange angle. They appeared to be crying in each other's arms. He felt a jolt of recognition. They looked surprisingly similar to Ben's own wife and child, and he would have certainly thought it was a picture of them however it couldn't be, because he had not taken any such pictures with him. The hotel proprietor would not know that this could be his wife and child, because he had not told anyone here. A joke from one of his partners? Maybe, but if so it was an expensive one, because he was all the way out here in Vegas.

Trepidation crept into his fingers causing him to drop the photo. He breathed in deeply and as he exhaled his whole body raddled like a metal pole does after being struck. He bent down and picked up the photo. It was lying face down on the dirty carpet. A date was written in neat cursive on the bottom left corner. He lifted it to his face, squinting. He had left his reading glasses on the tv stand across the room but didn't feel he needed them. This seemed somehow more important and rather urgent. No time. The date was blurry but he could just make it out. June 13 1960. “Fuck me” he muttered. He didn’t like this at all. “Must be misprinted.. A mistake” he uttered under his breath. 

The fear slipped away as his rational mind asserted itself as it always had. The answer could be nothing more mundane than improper attention to detail, and he had plenty enough experience dealing with that. He got up to get his reading glasses anyway, so as to better see the handwriting.

 He stood up and almost fell down. Blood rushed from his head and made him stumble. Teetering he saw the surrounding room blur and deform. a thought formed and dispersed without shape. Through the confusion he could make out the hotel pager. It warped and spun, but he forced himself forward and managed to slap his hand down on the counter it sat on. His fevered brain tried to make sense of the colors and arrows and depressed as many of them as he could, hoping one might be correct. The buttons would not respond and were stuck together through years of bad maintenance and untidy customers. They danced and expanded for his bulging eyes, offering nothing but numbers, numbers of things he had worked around his whole life. Reduced to nothing, just unintelligible foreign words. Words that his glazed over eyes could not comprehend He clutched at his chest. It felt as though there was something on it he could not get off, not for lack of trying. He was having trouble breathing now, and he was gulping down air. His legs gave way under him, and he fell sideways, almost comically slowly. His forehead collided with the tv as he went down, hitting one of the sharp plastic corners. He could no longer think. He called for help, but all that he heard was a choked gasp. The room was now silent once again. A wisp of dust plumed and sparkled in the dull light then slowly fell as the minutes past. It covered Ben Fogel and reduced his still warm body to nothing more than age, decay and meaningless numbers. 

 The door to room 111 opened one last time on the night before june 13 but it was an entry rather than an exit. “Hello? Mr. Fogel?” the cleaning lady poked her head in the door. She hadn't knocked. And she had no reason to. Her face was wrinkled and sunburnt. A emotionless smile stretched her battered face. Her eyes glinted with amusement. She pushed the door open with a creak and turned, pulling her cart behind her the wheels whined on the carpet. As it crossed the border of the door she closed the rooms only exit gently. She saw the lump that was Ben Fogel half sunken in the carpet covered in dust and her smile stretched. She lay one leathery hand on the peeling wallpaper, taking it all in. she wobbled over to the photo and picked it up. Sliding it in her pocket she withdrew another, with neat little cursive that spelled “August 8th” on the bottom left corner. She picked up the pamphlet on the bed and slipped the new photo in, then tucked it neatly between the others. She turned. The body was nearly gone, the carpet stretching over his arms and legs. “Good dear. You rest here with the others.” she brushed past what remained of Ben Fogel, back to her cart. “ Oops, almost forgot,” she said, releasing a neat little giggle. Removing a notepad from her chest pocket she scribbled down; inform hotel manager of death, cry and appear weak. She smiled, opening the door and pulling out her cart. Room 111 resealed with a sigh, and the creak of shoddy workmanship.