meticulously disordered so guests could read their newspapers and plan their trysts and doze in peace in what would normally be a crowded LA hotel lobby. The only light was from enormous leaded glass windows facing the street and the suspended dust particles gave the abandoned foyer the character of something frozen in aspic and undisturbed for generations.
Honor was alone in the lobby. To the left was a bank of house phones and to the right the curtained entrance to a darkened restaurant with a brass sign on a pole “Welcome to Milo’s. Please wait to be seated.” Beneath the mezzanine was a marble-topped reception with cash registers and a brass desk bell. Behind that was a swing door and a key rack with old-school metal keys. On a whim which seemed ill-advised the moment she pursued it Honor struck the desk bell and was astonished by the sharpness of the peel such a little bell could produce in the awesome quiet. The door behind the reception desk pushed slowly open.
A gangly young man in an ill-fitting brown plastic tuxedo moved tentatively into the narrow corridor behind the reception desk, his eyes fixed intently on the bell. His name-tag said “Darryl” and beneath that were little American and Spanish flags denoting the languages he spoke fluently yesterday, when he knew what languages were.
Darryl took in the reception area as though seeing it for the first time and indeed he probably was. He’d only become aware of existence this morning and since that time doubtless assumed that the staff office with its seemingly unlimited supply of crackers and chocolate-covered mints and bottled water and monogrammed hotel pens represented the generous limits of the known world. The ringing of the desk bell gave him cause to doubt a lifetime of assumptions.
Honor stepped back from the desk, unwilling to break Darryl’s trance. The clerk tentatively approached the bell, raised his hand, and struck it. He showed no change in expression but Darryl was clearly pleased with the effect and he repeated it, again and again, until the overlapping, high-pitched frequencies became in that space and time the most annoying thing the world.
The curtains to the entrance of Milo’s parted and produced a large sphere of a man in pristine kitchen whites and his own nametag, “Milo”. He also had a butcher’s knife and the universal empty stare but his version was humanized slightly by the permanently furrowed brow unique to heads of state and accomplished chefs.
Now Milo was newly born, seeing the world a few hours ago for the first time standing upright in a kitchen with a cleaver in his hand. He’d always had that knife in his hand. It was part of him, and quite possibly the most important part. It was certainly the only way he knew how to communicate. And there was something that he wanted to say.
Milo walked slowly but deliberately to the reception desk, across from Darryl, who continued to entertain himself with his new form of self-expression. Milo seemed to see only the bell until he looked Darryl in the eyes and calmly chopped off his hand.
The clerk managed to fuse shock and fear and pain and a soupçon of genuine curiosity into one extended and unidentified vowel as he picked up his right hand with his left and tried to put it back on. The chef observed the carnage he’d unleashed with the blank detachment of a lab technician noting the result of a satisfactory but largely predictable experiment. The clerk’s labors grew more desperate and unfocused and, in addition to describing a graceful arc of blood across the key rack, he knocked the desk bell to the floor where it bounced twice on its side and rolled to Honor before having a little wobbly spin and settling at her feet, dinging merrily all the way.
After a brief internal struggle the chef formed another isolated thought — the immutable conviction that Honor and the bell were conspiring against him. He began maneuvers
Honor was alone in the lobby. To the left was a bank of house phones and to the right the curtained entrance to a darkened restaurant with a brass sign on a pole “Welcome to Milo’s. Please wait to be seated.” Beneath the mezzanine was a marble-topped reception with cash registers and a brass desk bell. Behind that was a swing door and a key rack with old-school metal keys. On a whim which seemed ill-advised the moment she pursued it Honor struck the desk bell and was astonished by the sharpness of the peel such a little bell could produce in the awesome quiet. The door behind the reception desk pushed slowly open.
A gangly young man in an ill-fitting brown plastic tuxedo moved tentatively into the narrow corridor behind the reception desk, his eyes fixed intently on the bell. His name-tag said “Darryl” and beneath that were little American and Spanish flags denoting the languages he spoke fluently yesterday, when he knew what languages were.
Darryl took in the reception area as though seeing it for the first time and indeed he probably was. He’d only become aware of existence this morning and since that time doubtless assumed that the staff office with its seemingly unlimited supply of crackers and chocolate-covered mints and bottled water and monogrammed hotel pens represented the generous limits of the known world. The ringing of the desk bell gave him cause to doubt a lifetime of assumptions.
Honor stepped back from the desk, unwilling to break Darryl’s trance. The clerk tentatively approached the bell, raised his hand, and struck it. He showed no change in expression but Darryl was clearly pleased with the effect and he repeated it, again and again, until the overlapping, high-pitched frequencies became in that space and time the most annoying thing the world.
The curtains to the entrance of Milo’s parted and produced a large sphere of a man in pristine kitchen whites and his own nametag, “Milo”. He also had a butcher’s knife and the universal empty stare but his version was humanized slightly by the permanently furrowed brow unique to heads of state and accomplished chefs.
Now Milo was newly born, seeing the world a few hours ago for the first time standing upright in a kitchen with a cleaver in his hand. He’d always had that knife in his hand. It was part of him, and quite possibly the most important part. It was certainly the only way he knew how to communicate. And there was something that he wanted to say.
Milo walked slowly but deliberately to the reception desk, across from Darryl, who continued to entertain himself with his new form of self-expression. Milo seemed to see only the bell until he looked Darryl in the eyes and calmly chopped off his hand.
The clerk managed to fuse shock and fear and pain and a soupçon of genuine curiosity into one extended and unidentified vowel as he picked up his right hand with his left and tried to put it back on. The chef observed the carnage he’d unleashed with the blank detachment of a lab technician noting the result of a satisfactory but largely predictable experiment. The clerk’s labors grew more desperate and unfocused and, in addition to describing a graceful arc of blood across the key rack, he knocked the desk bell to the floor where it bounced twice on its side and rolled to Honor before having a little wobbly spin and settling at her feet, dinging merrily all the way.
After a brief internal struggle the chef formed another isolated thought — the immutable conviction that Honor and the bell were conspiring against him. He began maneuvers
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