Short Little Stories

Sheriam Mays sat behind the counter at the Bright Haven Motel, as she did every day from 6 PM till 2 AM. She watched the occasional hotel guest move about the lobby, as she did every day during her shift. She occasionally helped one of them when they came to her in need of getting a room or checking out… just the same as every day.

And just like every day, as she watched the passerby, she daydreamed of the lives they led.

That one – the man in the faded blue coat, with overgrown sideburns and dirty glasses and a baseball cap too big for him – he was a brilliant scientist despite his looks, on the run from his former employers for developing a food flavoring so good as to render those who tasted it comatose from sheer, visceral pleasure. He’d seen what had come of his life’s work, and learned all too quickly that they planned to sell his product to the military. He’d burned his notes and samples and fled, and would be dead in less than a month by his own hand (tastebuds), taking his genius with him to the grave.

See the couple shyly making out behind the fake geraniums? They had started going out just as payback, when they caught their previous loved ones together, cheating on them with each other. But their love was blossoming into something genuine, and they’d be married within a year, and have two sets of twins within three.

And what about the lady who came down to use the vending machine at precisely 8:07 every evening? The one who always wore a long scarf, mis-matched gloves, heels, jeans and a fancy blouse? An alien, of course. Surveying our puny earth culture in anticipation of an invasion that would never actually come.

Sheriam sat behind the counter and dreamed, and wished, just like she did every day, to have an exciting life of her own. She wanted to be someone special, someone with a life like that she imagined for all the hotel guests who passed by her as they carried on with their lives.

She was special, of course. She didn’t know that she was psychic, gifted with the ability to instantly know the life story of complete strangers. She thought all she had was an active imagination, but it was so much more than that.

But it would be ten long years at the same mindless desk-job before she would find out.

Before the day would come when a handsome, dark-haired man would walk into the lobby of the Bright Haven Motel. A man with a dark past, who had hunted down witches, monsters, and all manner of ‘deviants’ that had threatened the public good. This time, though, he’d come in search of a very special woman, never guessing that he himself would fall in love, and the two of them would vanish away on a grand adventure…