LJ Idol Topic #27: Noumenon
There was a motel with twenty-six rooms, behind twenty-six doors all in a row. The manager’s name was Mr. Locke; he sat at the desk around the clock. In night, in day, in rain or sun, as if he never required sleep. He greeted guests with a smile and a key, until one fateful night, when the sign read:
Sleepy Time Motel
Air Conditioning
Pool -- Able TV(Somewhere along the way, they had lost a “C”)
And after that bit,
NO VACANCY
Aurelia Anton from Aubergine, Arkansas was staying in Room One. She’d come in with one truck, two suitcases, three valises, a make-up kit and a little dog in a sweater. Mr. Locke had put on his little bell-hop cap and changed the desk sign to say “Will Return in 15 Minutes” so that he could help her bring her luggage to her room, but she only tipped him a dollar for his time.
It was round about nine-thirty PM when Miss Aurelia walked back into Mr. Locke’s office. Mr. Locke was reading the newspaper. Miss Aurelia was wearing a frilly bathrobe.
“You must so something about that wailing infant!” she said, as shrilly as her bathrobe was frilly.
“Infant?” asked Mr. Locke. He looked at her with an expression that suggested he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Wailing?”
“Yes, it’s upsetting my Alfonse,” she said. “He’s on pills for anxiety.”
So Mr. Locke switched his office sign to say “Will Return in 20 Minutes,” and went out to see what the fuss was about.
Bugles blared bombastically from Room Two. Mr. Locke rapped at the door. A man poked his head out.
“Pardon,” said Mr. Locke. “Could you please keep that down?”
“Keep what down?” asked the man at the door, as he pulled plugs from his ears.
“Err, we have guests trying to sleep,” said Mr. Locke. “Quiet hours are from nine until nine.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to be quiet when nine o’-- heavens!” the man exclaimed. “It’s dark out. Why, yes, I’ve got to put Betsy to sleep.” He thrust a hand out in greeting. “Barnaby Bix, of the Beiderbecke Six. We’ve got a very important concert tomorrow!”
“Six?” Mr. Locke asked worriedly. “Betsy? You only registered one guest in this room, Mister Bix.”
Barnaby Bix chuckled. “Oh, Betsy’s just my horn,” he assured Mr. Locke, but Mr. Locke couldn’t help but notice the way Mr. Bix blocked the entry way to the room.
Mr. Locke could hear crying as he approached Room Three. He was greeted by Cassie Cornell, and her cacophonous cat, Cuddles.
“She can’t help it,” said Cassie. “She has colic. Poor thing.”
“She’s disturbing the guests,” Mr. Locke apologized. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Cassie frowned. “Do you have any cough syrup?”
Fortunately for Casse, Room Four was occupied by Dr. Donald Dookey, who had spent most of his adolescent years being mocked for his name. He was a people doctor, but once Mr. Locke had coaxed him into muting his documentary on death by dysentery (which depicted many moans of despair), he happily administered to Cuddles, pro bono.
Esmeralda Edgington in Room Five was eager to speak with Mr. Locke about maintaining an easement on the East side of the motel property for the purpose of her elocution school. Mr. Locke said he would bring it up with the owners. Esmeralda returned to her mirror, holding her teeth together and her lips apart to sound “EEE EEE EEE EEE.”
The emanations from Room Six came not in the form of sounds, but fumes.
Fred Furniss came to the door, his fist curled around something fetid.
“I’m afraid this is a no-smoking room,” said Mr. Locke.
“I’m sorry,” said Fred. “My foot scrub caught on fire. I’ll put it out right away.”
Mr. Locke, dubious that that scent was foot scrub, but not at all eager to engage with the local authorities, nodded and thanked him, and went along to Room Seven, where the gregarious Glenda Garwood gave him a gingersnap.
“I don’t know what that sound is,” she said to Mr. Locke. “I heard it too. Definitely not a baby. More like a gaggle of geese.”
The lady in Room Eight had paid in cash, and wouldn’t give her real name. She explained that she was dressing as Helga Hufflepuff for a Harry Potter convention and was trying to stay in character.
“Geese?” she said. “Dear me, no, our house animal is a badger.”
Mr. Locke heard a low growl from underneath the bed. “Well, as long as you clean up after yourself,” he said, uneasily.
Ichabod Irving seemed irate at the interruption. Mr. Locke left quickly. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “Don’t lose your head over it.”
“I was just on my way to see you!” exclaimed Jennifer Johnson of Room Ten. “Some jackanape has jolted with my jewelry!”
“Did you see anything?” asked Mr. Locke. He was very concerned, because in all his days of motel management, nothing of value had ever gone missing before.
“No!” said Jennifer. “I was doing my nightly jumping jacks when there was a loud cry outside my window. I turned to see what it was, and when I turned back around, my jewelry box was just....jacked!”
Mr. Locke gave her a pat on the back and some jasmine tea, and now set off to find two culprits.
Room Eleven was occupied by Kevin Kenneally, a collector of knick-knacks.
“Knicks-knick-knacks,” he corrected, when Mr. Locke questioned him. “That is to say, any knick-knacks to do with the New York Knicks.”
“The what?” asked Mr. Locke.
“The basketball team,” replied Kevin Kenneally, with the kind of resignation that suggested this was a frequent question. “Anyhow, unless her jewelry had something to do with the Knicks, I would have no interest.”
Room Twelve, naturally, was Lionel Locke’s own room, where he was permitted to stay, gratis, as part of his compensation package as manager of the motel. He let that one lie.
Rooms Thirteen and Fourteen were adjoining rooms, currently inhabited by twins Molly Malone (née Naderwaller) and her brother, Ned.
“Are you identical twins?” Mr. Locke asked, curious.
“Only twins born of the same sex can be identical,” said Molly.
“The rest are fraternal,” said Ned.
“I did hear some meowing,” Molly answered, when asked about the disturbance.
“Yes, there was quite a lot of noise,” agreed Ned.
“And some music,” said Molly.
“It was a rather nice record,” said Ned. “Jazz, I think.”
“Would you like to buy some mussels?” asked Molly.
Ophelia Oliver in Room Fifteen answered him rather obtusely. “Oh,” she said. “It’s a joy to go somewhere where you can have ordinances instead of laws, order instead of chas.”
“You mean chaos,” corrected Mr. Locke.
“No, I mean chas,” said Miss Oliver. “That’s the trouble.”
Percival Polsky, PhD., was much more to the point. “I didn’t hear anything,” he answered. “I was postulating on a very problematic piece of physics involving parallel paradoxes.”
“Quite a phenomenon,” agreed Mr. Locke, glancing at the pendulum swinging from a pedestal.
“No, not quite,” replied Professor Polsky.
Quentin Quigley merely queried Mr. Locke in return. “Why are you the one doing the questioning?” he asked. “Where are the authorities?”
“The Passamaquoddy Police have been having dragon problems,” Mr. Locke explained apologetically. “I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as they sort out the ruckus at the lighthouse.”
Ruckus was quite the word to describe Room Eighteen, whose occupant likely would have been fascinated by dragons, as Rosamund Revere was a reptile specialist. The room was alive with ribbits, which definitely did not sound like a baby’s cry, but were very loud nonetheless.
“Would you like to see my Rana regina?” she asked, holding up a very large, rose-colored frog. “She’s a new species; I’ve just discovered her in the rolltop desk.”
“I did hear the screaming,” she assured him. “But I suspected that Roger encountered one of the other guests. Roger, my python?” she explained. “He’s quite reserved, but he is rather long. Hm! And he does have a fondness for rubies. Do you know what kind of jewelry it was?”
Room Nineteen was silent.
Theodore Tawson of Room Twenty was quite timid about the whole tumult. “I’ve been typing,” he explained, and drew back to reveal his typewriting. “It’s a treatise on treacle. Quite tasty. But I was quite taken with it. I don’t think I took notice of any kind of ...”
He reached for his thesaurus. “Turbulence.”
Ullala Ulfsdottir was under the bed in Room Twenty-One. “Sh,” she said. “I’m undercover.”
“Quite literally,” agreed Mr. Locke, although he couldn’t really see anything behind the dustruffle.
“My name is Una Uland. I have been traveling in Uruguay as part of my career as an underwear model. I returned home after my uncle died, as I was unsensible with grief.”
“I’m pretty sure you mean insensible,” said Mr. Locke. “Unsensible is something different entirely.”
“No, I’m unsensible,” answered Ullala-Una. “In fact, now that you mention it, it might have been me crying. My uvula is quite dry.”
“I’m not a vampire,” Vlad Vorobiev insisted, as he opened the door. He had pale, bluish skin, and yellow eyes. “People always asked that. They think it’s funny. In act, I’m a vegetarian. Practically vegan. Not a vampire.”
Mr. Locke asked about the stolen jewelry, and the crying.
Vlad shook his head. “Well, I’m not fond of anything with a reflective surface, so you won’t find any jewelry in here. And that wouldn’t be the screams of any victims,” he assured him, as he hastily pushed his elongated incisors back into his mouth. “Seeing as I’m not a vampire.”
In Room Twenty-Three, Wanda Willonsky was waging war. “I’m a Womynyst,” she explained. “With a Y. Two Ys, in fact.”
Mr. Locke checked the room number, and then explained about the wailing.
“No, I haven’t heard anything like that,” said Wanda. “Unless it was the suffering of my sisters under the shackles of the dominant patriarchy. Are you a member of the dominant patriarchy?” she asked Mr. Locke.
“No, I’m just the desk manager,” Mr. Locke assured her.
“A man!” she exclaimed. “Asserting his position of power!”
“Not willingly,” Mr. Locke informed Wanda, but he crept out of that room very deferentially, just in case.
Xeroxes lined the walls of Room Twenty-Four, although the occupant was nowhere in sight. There, taped up to the stucco, were the photos of all the other guests.
Mr. Locke noticed that one was missing. There were only twenty-four images. on the wall.
Yuriy Yanovich was yelling when Mr. Locke got to Room Twenty-Five. “The yellow-- the yellow--” but he never finished the sentence. He yawned loudly, and dropped off into a deep slumber.
Which left Zara Zizmor, zookeeper. “I can tell you one thing,” she said to Mr. Locke. “It was definitely...”
You Solve the Mystery!
--What was the noise keeping Alfonse awake?
--Who (or what) jacked Jennifer’s jewelry?
--Was Vlad really a vampire, or not?
--Whose picture was missing from the wall of xeroxes?
--What did Zara tell Mr. Locke?
FOLLOW THE CLUES TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE!
Sleepy Time Motel
Air Conditioning
Pool -- Able TV(Somewhere along the way, they had lost a “C”)
And after that bit,
NO VACANCY
Aurelia Anton from Aubergine, Arkansas was staying in Room One. She’d come in with one truck, two suitcases, three valises, a make-up kit and a little dog in a sweater. Mr. Locke had put on his little bell-hop cap and changed the desk sign to say “Will Return in 15 Minutes” so that he could help her bring her luggage to her room, but she only tipped him a dollar for his time.
It was round about nine-thirty PM when Miss Aurelia walked back into Mr. Locke’s office. Mr. Locke was reading the newspaper. Miss Aurelia was wearing a frilly bathrobe.
“You must so something about that wailing infant!” she said, as shrilly as her bathrobe was frilly.
“Infant?” asked Mr. Locke. He looked at her with an expression that suggested he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Wailing?”
“Yes, it’s upsetting my Alfonse,” she said. “He’s on pills for anxiety.”
So Mr. Locke switched his office sign to say “Will Return in 20 Minutes,” and went out to see what the fuss was about.
Bugles blared bombastically from Room Two. Mr. Locke rapped at the door. A man poked his head out.
“Pardon,” said Mr. Locke. “Could you please keep that down?”
“Keep what down?” asked the man at the door, as he pulled plugs from his ears.
“Err, we have guests trying to sleep,” said Mr. Locke. “Quiet hours are from nine until nine.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to be quiet when nine o’-- heavens!” the man exclaimed. “It’s dark out. Why, yes, I’ve got to put Betsy to sleep.” He thrust a hand out in greeting. “Barnaby Bix, of the Beiderbecke Six. We’ve got a very important concert tomorrow!”
“Six?” Mr. Locke asked worriedly. “Betsy? You only registered one guest in this room, Mister Bix.”
Barnaby Bix chuckled. “Oh, Betsy’s just my horn,” he assured Mr. Locke, but Mr. Locke couldn’t help but notice the way Mr. Bix blocked the entry way to the room.
Mr. Locke could hear crying as he approached Room Three. He was greeted by Cassie Cornell, and her cacophonous cat, Cuddles.
“She can’t help it,” said Cassie. “She has colic. Poor thing.”
“She’s disturbing the guests,” Mr. Locke apologized. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Cassie frowned. “Do you have any cough syrup?”
Fortunately for Casse, Room Four was occupied by Dr. Donald Dookey, who had spent most of his adolescent years being mocked for his name. He was a people doctor, but once Mr. Locke had coaxed him into muting his documentary on death by dysentery (which depicted many moans of despair), he happily administered to Cuddles, pro bono.
Esmeralda Edgington in Room Five was eager to speak with Mr. Locke about maintaining an easement on the East side of the motel property for the purpose of her elocution school. Mr. Locke said he would bring it up with the owners. Esmeralda returned to her mirror, holding her teeth together and her lips apart to sound “EEE EEE EEE EEE.”
The emanations from Room Six came not in the form of sounds, but fumes.
Fred Furniss came to the door, his fist curled around something fetid.
“I’m afraid this is a no-smoking room,” said Mr. Locke.
“I’m sorry,” said Fred. “My foot scrub caught on fire. I’ll put it out right away.”
Mr. Locke, dubious that that scent was foot scrub, but not at all eager to engage with the local authorities, nodded and thanked him, and went along to Room Seven, where the gregarious Glenda Garwood gave him a gingersnap.
“I don’t know what that sound is,” she said to Mr. Locke. “I heard it too. Definitely not a baby. More like a gaggle of geese.”
The lady in Room Eight had paid in cash, and wouldn’t give her real name. She explained that she was dressing as Helga Hufflepuff for a Harry Potter convention and was trying to stay in character.
“Geese?” she said. “Dear me, no, our house animal is a badger.”
Mr. Locke heard a low growl from underneath the bed. “Well, as long as you clean up after yourself,” he said, uneasily.
Ichabod Irving seemed irate at the interruption. Mr. Locke left quickly. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “Don’t lose your head over it.”
“I was just on my way to see you!” exclaimed Jennifer Johnson of Room Ten. “Some jackanape has jolted with my jewelry!”
“Did you see anything?” asked Mr. Locke. He was very concerned, because in all his days of motel management, nothing of value had ever gone missing before.
“No!” said Jennifer. “I was doing my nightly jumping jacks when there was a loud cry outside my window. I turned to see what it was, and when I turned back around, my jewelry box was just....jacked!”
Mr. Locke gave her a pat on the back and some jasmine tea, and now set off to find two culprits.
Room Eleven was occupied by Kevin Kenneally, a collector of knick-knacks.
“Knicks-knick-knacks,” he corrected, when Mr. Locke questioned him. “That is to say, any knick-knacks to do with the New York Knicks.”
“The what?” asked Mr. Locke.
“The basketball team,” replied Kevin Kenneally, with the kind of resignation that suggested this was a frequent question. “Anyhow, unless her jewelry had something to do with the Knicks, I would have no interest.”
Room Twelve, naturally, was Lionel Locke’s own room, where he was permitted to stay, gratis, as part of his compensation package as manager of the motel. He let that one lie.
Rooms Thirteen and Fourteen were adjoining rooms, currently inhabited by twins Molly Malone (née Naderwaller) and her brother, Ned.
“Are you identical twins?” Mr. Locke asked, curious.
“Only twins born of the same sex can be identical,” said Molly.
“The rest are fraternal,” said Ned.
“I did hear some meowing,” Molly answered, when asked about the disturbance.
“Yes, there was quite a lot of noise,” agreed Ned.
“And some music,” said Molly.
“It was a rather nice record,” said Ned. “Jazz, I think.”
“Would you like to buy some mussels?” asked Molly.
Ophelia Oliver in Room Fifteen answered him rather obtusely. “Oh,” she said. “It’s a joy to go somewhere where you can have ordinances instead of laws, order instead of chas.”
“You mean chaos,” corrected Mr. Locke.
“No, I mean chas,” said Miss Oliver. “That’s the trouble.”
Percival Polsky, PhD., was much more to the point. “I didn’t hear anything,” he answered. “I was postulating on a very problematic piece of physics involving parallel paradoxes.”
“Quite a phenomenon,” agreed Mr. Locke, glancing at the pendulum swinging from a pedestal.
“No, not quite,” replied Professor Polsky.
Quentin Quigley merely queried Mr. Locke in return. “Why are you the one doing the questioning?” he asked. “Where are the authorities?”
“The Passamaquoddy Police have been having dragon problems,” Mr. Locke explained apologetically. “I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as they sort out the ruckus at the lighthouse.”
Ruckus was quite the word to describe Room Eighteen, whose occupant likely would have been fascinated by dragons, as Rosamund Revere was a reptile specialist. The room was alive with ribbits, which definitely did not sound like a baby’s cry, but were very loud nonetheless.
“Would you like to see my Rana regina?” she asked, holding up a very large, rose-colored frog. “She’s a new species; I’ve just discovered her in the rolltop desk.”
“I did hear the screaming,” she assured him. “But I suspected that Roger encountered one of the other guests. Roger, my python?” she explained. “He’s quite reserved, but he is rather long. Hm! And he does have a fondness for rubies. Do you know what kind of jewelry it was?”
Room Nineteen was silent.
Theodore Tawson of Room Twenty was quite timid about the whole tumult. “I’ve been typing,” he explained, and drew back to reveal his typewriting. “It’s a treatise on treacle. Quite tasty. But I was quite taken with it. I don’t think I took notice of any kind of ...”
He reached for his thesaurus. “Turbulence.”
Ullala Ulfsdottir was under the bed in Room Twenty-One. “Sh,” she said. “I’m undercover.”
“Quite literally,” agreed Mr. Locke, although he couldn’t really see anything behind the dustruffle.
“My name is Una Uland. I have been traveling in Uruguay as part of my career as an underwear model. I returned home after my uncle died, as I was unsensible with grief.”
“I’m pretty sure you mean insensible,” said Mr. Locke. “Unsensible is something different entirely.”
“No, I’m unsensible,” answered Ullala-Una. “In fact, now that you mention it, it might have been me crying. My uvula is quite dry.”
“I’m not a vampire,” Vlad Vorobiev insisted, as he opened the door. He had pale, bluish skin, and yellow eyes. “People always asked that. They think it’s funny. In act, I’m a vegetarian. Practically vegan. Not a vampire.”
Mr. Locke asked about the stolen jewelry, and the crying.
Vlad shook his head. “Well, I’m not fond of anything with a reflective surface, so you won’t find any jewelry in here. And that wouldn’t be the screams of any victims,” he assured him, as he hastily pushed his elongated incisors back into his mouth. “Seeing as I’m not a vampire.”
In Room Twenty-Three, Wanda Willonsky was waging war. “I’m a Womynyst,” she explained. “With a Y. Two Ys, in fact.”
Mr. Locke checked the room number, and then explained about the wailing.
“No, I haven’t heard anything like that,” said Wanda. “Unless it was the suffering of my sisters under the shackles of the dominant patriarchy. Are you a member of the dominant patriarchy?” she asked Mr. Locke.
“No, I’m just the desk manager,” Mr. Locke assured her.
“A man!” she exclaimed. “Asserting his position of power!”
“Not willingly,” Mr. Locke informed Wanda, but he crept out of that room very deferentially, just in case.
Xeroxes lined the walls of Room Twenty-Four, although the occupant was nowhere in sight. There, taped up to the stucco, were the photos of all the other guests.
Mr. Locke noticed that one was missing. There were only twenty-four images. on the wall.
Yuriy Yanovich was yelling when Mr. Locke got to Room Twenty-Five. “The yellow-- the yellow--” but he never finished the sentence. He yawned loudly, and dropped off into a deep slumber.
Which left Zara Zizmor, zookeeper. “I can tell you one thing,” she said to Mr. Locke. “It was definitely...”
You Solve the Mystery!
--What was the noise keeping Alfonse awake?
--Who (or what) jacked Jennifer’s jewelry?
--Was Vlad really a vampire, or not?
--Whose picture was missing from the wall of xeroxes?
--What did Zara tell Mr. Locke?
FOLLOW THE CLUES TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE!