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Science Fiction

I had just entered a guest's double room, stripping off bedsheets as I silently hoped that a tiny kind hearted angel had intervened the previous night and dropped a two-hundred-dollar note (or even more) from the pockets of the occupants of this room. If by any chance such luck would meet me - I would go back to my room, pack my small bag and storm into the human resource manager’s office demanding to terminate my unpaid internship. 

Back from fantasy world, my name is Rina; currently doing my attachment in the housekeeping department of some five-star hotel in town. On this bright morning, I woke up with that disturbing hope that a guest would drop a note and make me filthy rich so that I won’t have to struggle any more or wake up early anymore. Actually this is the hope that drives me every single day to get up from that cranky bed I was offered for accommodation. 

I stagger across the terrain carrying a bundle of bed sheets, a heap of pillow cases, a tremendously long broom and a bucket filled with liquid soap, detergents, antiseptics and rags for dusting. As I walk by smiling at passing guests, I can’t help but wonder, what the hell happened to my dear life? I had a promising future, that is what my poor grandmother assured me before her death. I was destined for greatness or at least that is what I believed. In school, I might not have been the straight A's kind of a student but I was a straight C's with a few lucky B's here and there (I might also have gotten some few scattered Ds somewhere along the way), but that did not qualify to revoke my grandma’s blessings.

When I arrive this guest’s double room, the first thing I do is to throw the load on my shoulder to an empty chair. My shoulders were sore and painful and I shivered at the thought of dying in the course of this internship. Looking at the beds in this room, I could not help but wonder whether the couple that occupied this room could be any more selfish! 

“Why would a lawfully wedded couple, maybe not wedded, not share a bed? Or maybe they shared the bed and when they had messed it up enough they transferred the mess to the other clean bed? A couple sleeping in two beds in one night, just great,’’ I grumbled to myself.

 “Was that a full bar of chocolate resting inside the fridge?” I could not believe what I was seeing as I opened the fridge. 

 My eyes grew wide and round as I relaxed on the couch and munched at ‘my’ bar of chocolate and I fully embraced that opportunity and used it to access the internet illegally, using the hotel’s free WI-FI. I sucked lavishly at my last piece of chocolate as I smiled wickedly like a wicked witch.

Just when I had stretched myself on the couch in preparation for a ten-minute nap, I heard a knock on the door. I rushed to open it thinking it was the supervisor coming to inspect the room, ‘’ surely did he imagine that I was a robot or what?’’ I thought to myself as I swung the door open. To my surprise, the couple that had just checked out of this room was right before me, smiling at me like Cheshire cats.

 ‘’ How are you, miss,’’ they asked.

‘’Very well thank you. How may I help you?’’ I answered silently praying that they had not come back for their bar of chocolate.

‘’ We actually forgot something in the fridge, we are here to get it.’’ The man spoke as he walked past me heading straight to the fridge.

‘’ A bar of chocolate?’’ I asked knowing this time I was in real trouble with the management of the hotel. The last time I was summoned because I drank a guest's wine thinking she had checked out yet she was spending an extra night in the room.

‘’No,’’ they said in unison as they burst out laughing and looked at me, ‘’ Don’t tell us that you ate the ‘Moon scape’.’’ The man thundered at me. His countenance had changed – in his eyes – there was a mixture of anger, shock and disappointment.

“It really did taste like chocolate,” I commented innocently.

He now began explaining to me the consequences of eating the so called ‘moon scape’ that had tasted so much like chocolate to me. He said that every year, one person is sent to the moon to work as a slave for aliens who regulate the amount of heat and light that the moon emits. It sounded crazy to me as the man continued explaining anyone that ate the 'moon scape' was the chosen one. 

“So far no one that goes to the moon for this mission has ever come back but they have become heroes for sacrificing their lives for the rest of mankind.”

‘’ very encouraging news,’’ I said sarcastically, ‘’well, keep me out of that heroes' list because I am going no where.”

‘’ We too are aliens. You have no choice, Rina.” Was that an echo added to the lady’s voice?

 I began sweating the moment I heard this pronouncement and I did what anyone in my position would do. I decided to run for my life and as I looked back to see whether the two were pursuing me, I was shocked to see them standing right where I left them and laughing as they looked at me. 

When I turned my head back to look ahead, I saw the two standing right in front of me. I tried hiding from them but they kept appearing and disappearing until I collapsed out of fatigue. I am not sure how long I lay there but when I woke up I found myself fully dressed like an astronaut with a bunch of people cheering me on.

The estranged couple was there walking me towards the rocket and once in the rocket they even helped fasten my seat belt. They handed me a manual I was to use to operate the rocket and before I could say anything I was shut inside the rocket all alone going to a strange planet to become a slave to some aliens.

‘’ Will you get up from the guests’ couch you lazy gnat – ‘’ believe it or not this was my housekeeping supervisor waking me up. ‘’ Since morning you have done totally nothing and yet guests have began checking in,’’ he shouted bitterly as I peeped at my watch, I couldn’t believe that I had been sleeping the whole morning and the better part of the afternoon.

July 26, 2020 05:54

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