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Chapter 3
“The silence is always filled with the expectance of noise. That’s what’s worst about it, the fact that you expect there to be something but nothing ever comes and you know nothing is ever coming because it’s just you. Just you and a load of rooms that used to be alive. I need to fill those rooms.”
(Galileo Rook, 2018. Application for residence – Paradoxia Grande)
“Self-awareness, limitations taught through experience plagues life and taunts its smug sentience. However, the boundaries of the possible, the probable, and the proven, present life with a unique capacity to argue the nature of existence. In doing so life finds nothing but death surrounds it, death in numbers and decay. To the best of this equation, life seeks only one purpose.”
(Galileo Rook, 2019. Distinguishing the real: The thaumaturgy of phenomenological representation. Lowden End:N.P)
…..................................................................................
The Paradoxia Grande is not so much a hotel but an incomplete reality. Allowing only so much to be represented as the human mind can produce and endure. Translating into audio and visual perception the conscious and unconscious thoughts was the height of humanity’s technology. A world of two senses and three dimensions. One hoped to unlock the truest form of community and yet one destined to fail. The spectacular atrocities of life’s inner-worlds savaged the walls and sounds of the guiltless structure causing a maelstrom of madness and murder. Haunted by the monstrosity of human thought, the hotel was soon abandoned and shunned by all but the curious. Absent of all but a singular life seeking indefatigably, the one undeniable purpose. Genesis.
“Welcome to the Paradoxia Grande. I am your concierge Galileo. How long will you be staying with us?” Galileo gave a capricious exposition.
Expressing a wondrous brevity, the man replied, “One night”.
“But of course, sir, no one ever stays any longer but it does well of me to check each time.” He continued swiftly with a practiced air, one becoming a man of excellent station.
A peculiarity arose and began the ponder “How long have you been here Galileo?”
Galileo adorned his eloquence with a hasty exaggeration, his head nodding, eventually leading to a defensive gesture of hands mockingly mime-like and, in finality, a tap to his brow. “Not taken a day off in two years now. Be a bit difficult since I’m the only person who works here. Everyone else quit, as you may imagine. In fact, it is because you imagine. Ha Ha. No. Seriously though. The place was running but no-one was home when I got here. Abandoned. I wrote letter after letter to anyone connected to the building and eventually could start work here on the agreement that I take a psychological evaluation once a week.”
“Once a week?” consternation begged.
Ambivalently “Yes, keeps the psychologist society happy.”
“And everyone else went mad?” The man plainly enquired.
Museumdly, Galileo evoked another well practiced and yet totally natural response “Not everyone, the main occurrences of violence were between husband and wife. Fantasies of sex with other people painted graphically on the wall will have that effect on a marriage. People couldn’t accept the difference between dreams and reality here. It all seemed so…how should I say…. important. no. What I mean is that people couldn’t rectify the person they saw on the walls with the person they knew in real life. Well then again, what is real if not the walls of the Grande.”
“What do you mean?” A worthwhile question to the man.
“What I mean is sir, what we see in our heads, how much of that is real to us and how much is fantasy. It is a lot easier to draw a distinction when it’s locked away in here. When it’s out, when you see it and feel it. Well then… the simulation is indistinguishable from reality. Except no-one was ever that good at it. The mind doesn’t need all the details for the pictures in our head. Its focus always shifts.” Galileo had, for this time, been as helpful as any man may be in such curious circumstances. Without the laborious details of science, he answered only with the rough description proffered to him by his own understanding.
“I must admit it is not what I expected it to be. It all seems so blank. The walls, and desk around you seem to be the only place with any life.” The trappings of the hotel were indeed unnecessarily blank, the walls and floors tending towards a hollow white, not too bright to strain the eyes but enough to provide adequate lighting for the pure white furniture.
A moment of pride ensued. “I am usually the hotel’s only resident. Myself and Cynthia the A.I. of course, but we are still a-ways from counting her. The hotel adjusts to demand and Cynthia is great for loading prefabricated experiences when you want them. That’s the way of the place sir. The system only creates what it needs to, it favours conservative pragmatism in regards to energy usage. There are rooms that are pre-loaded with décor and if you like I can provide you with a list of our highly recommended immersive experiences. Though for the most part the hotel remains in stand-by. As you move around it will become accustomed to your depth perception and you’ll soon notice the white walls receding from your vision.” He said articulating a waterfall on moss-ground stones to appear far-aways to the man’s left. Following this brief intermission, the walls returned to their untouched pearlescent veneer.
The man’s eyes spread around Galileo taking in the garnet coloured walls and mahogany desk. Gaudy red upholstery and polished wood furniture populated the area around the main reception desk, an unfinished masterpiece upon a white canvass. The candelabra glittered gold above the butler’s work station which aside from the white computer was a rich warming fibre. Looking more closely the heartwood and sapwood divides began to change, faces and shapes danced over the surface, shadows of a cloudy gaze.
“Will you and your wife be wanting separate rooms sir? We advise it due to the strain another person’s mind puts on a person.” His eyes directed towards the previously ignored figure.
“My wife?” He replied questioningly.
“Yes sir, your wife” Galileo made sport of pointing with an open palm to the woman beside him.
The spectral visage embodied obscurely the frame of a woman and disclosed no further details beyond its ample shape, no clothes to speak of, no features. A grey static smoked body wisped a nebulous hue to its edging, frayed and glossy. The man shuddered a quick semi-pounce in retreat finding his hand to the side and his other straightened out before him. This Kabuki stance lasted a few seconds as he desperately tried to reason what was before him. Galileo watched the scene with a mental applaud visibly extruded by an appreciative nod for the defensive posturing and firm footing of the stance.
“But…who…is…she?”
Dismissively, Galileo returned, “I am unable to make this assumption sir, my apologies. It must be a shade sir. Pay it no mind.”
“A shade?” perturbed by the shade’s proximity the man paled upon his reflection.
Dreamishly absent, Galileo gently explained. “Yes sir, a half-thought. Some kind of representation of a person from the psyche, they’re quite often like this.”
“What is it doing?” The man replied, increasingly affected by the encroachment upon his self-space.
“It appears to be looking at you, sir. Reaching out. The usual kind of thing.” Galileo answered maintaining his dismissive countenance.
“How long will it do that?” Eyebrows elevated, unnaturally, as the shade moved within centimetres of him.
“Well, they tend to come and go depending on what you’re thinking of sir. I suppose because it is the object of your attention, and mine, that this one shall persist for a while.” He said and stared at the figure, a brief flash of red and flesh momentarily invaded the formless voidling. Galileo looked away glancing to his hands.
“It’s trying to touch me?” The man irked pedalling backwards slightly.
Regained of jovial composure Galileo animated himself into life and with a pleasant smile, one that lifted his cheeks level with his eyes and sparked them with both wrinkles and youth. “Now, now sir. I’m sure as soon as you take an interest in some of our exceptional facilities it’ll be gone in a jiffy.”
It touched him. “Are you sure?”
“I’m almost positive sir.”
“Almost?” The man swatted away the shade causing a brief absence of it. Then, slowly, it vapoured up from its roots and resumed its entanglement with the man’s personal space.
“Well I’m not in the habit of certainties anymore sir.”
He edged away. “I think I’m going elsewhere.”
“Look, I understand the vacant face and overly wide smile may come across a little, erm... unusual. But as you can see it cannot hurt you in anyway. It is, after all, not real.”
“Is it supposed to do that?” Tendrils untouched his bumping flesh.
“It is supposed to do nothing sir, I can assure you it merely reacts to how we perceive it.” It turned a face forwards to Galileo, smiling, staring with warm hollow eyes.
“But it’s growing more grotesque.” Spider’s legs began to claw their way out of the ash-black netherous sockets.
“That’ll be your fear of it sir. Funny thing how the mind begins making things worse for itself. It’s what caused most of the issues here. People just can’t let go of their nightmares once they see them. See sir.”
Galileo remained perfectly still as it appeared a jumble of spiders came pouring out of his mouth and scattering over the desk. Forcing their legs from behind his eyes and out of his nostrils the perfectly calm face only added to the grotesque visage.
“Oh my god.” Paled the man, as his hue monochromatically translucified.
“Yes, quite tragic really, I hate the idea of being eaten by spiders and I’ve seen too many horror films where this sort of thing happens. But as you can see I’m no worse for wear of it sir.”
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t know what I was thinking, I thought….” Almost gushing like a water spout the man turned his head down, held back the rain of tears, and forced himself to look up to the candelabra and determinedly walk towards the exit.
Still more horror was descending Galileo’s unmoved features. But behind him, stalked, something far worse. An abomination of black motted husk and red pannacotta eyes, a fanged web-spinner, easing, inching, its maw closer, and closer, and closer, mandiblising with saliva. “You thought it wasn’t that bad sir. It happens, people are driven to this place. Most find their hubris here sir. No offence of course.”
“I’m leaving” He called the obvious.
“As you wish sir, would you like me to phone you a taxi?”
“Yes, as soon as possible.” The man in the charcoal suit and silver-grey cashmere scarf walked towards the revolving door. As he walked, an increasing amount of shades gathered around him. Walls slithered jagged shadows and the man’s pace increased exponentially when he noticed them. In the darkness, an amble of legs, spindly and misshapen, scurried. Thick strands descended luxurious glimmering pearls around him. Without thinking, he swung in rings before hastily reaching into his pocket for his phone, he brushed his index finger over the tip of his nose nervously before falling a step forwards. A moment later and he was gone into the sunlight. The shades turned their attention to Galileo and began a slow shuffle forwards.
Galileo sighed.
“Cynthia do you mind?”
“The shade was not a representation of his psyche. Galileo.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. Now if you will, Trafalgar square.”
Galileo looked up as the shades caressed his face. Sir Henry Havelock looked down on him in sunlight. Occasionally the birds broke their form across the ocean-blue sky and a faint breeze skipped what little rubbish there was along the pavement. And still the maw mandibilised, inches from the nape of his neck, hungering.
One shade lingered holding Galileo’s face as he tried to read the article before him. Its weightless touch preoccupied his mind.
“It’s no good Cynthia, I need to go outside for a bit and clear my head. Call a taxi for me” He paused a minute, the shades and maw scattered to dust. “No, I don’t mean for me, call a taxi for that guy.” He noticed they suddenly reconfigured as his observation of their absence made them anew.
“As you will Galileo.”
He stood up and walked with dalliance towards the front door. Pushing through he saw the man waiting for his taxi. Pulling out a cigarette Galileo began a conversation with the man.
Not long after the man’s taxi departed Galileo returned into the hotel.
“Cynthia. Load up our progress will you.”
The bath of velvet swung over the room with maroon orange radiance as he turned like a conductor of some grand harmony. The kitchen island, as yet grey and untextured, sprung from the ground opposite the window. A further wave of activity brought the door and cupboards into pace in varying levels of completion.
“Cynthia. Play me some pixelling music. Something relaxing.”
“I think today we’ll have finally put this whole apple conundrum to bed. I’m fairly certain it was this yellow and red one. And in fact, the green things were pears.”
“Do you wish me to discard the green apples from system memory?”
“No, no. We’re not that certain, we’re never that certain. Keep it in the ‘could be’ folder with the plums.”
“File saved”
“Excellent. Well what do you think?”
“It appears a very good representation of a Jonagold apple Galileo”
“Hmm. Maybe that’s not right. Jonagold sounds a bit fancy to be an apple from the Tesco Express. Can you change it to a Red Delicious size?”
“Is this correct?”
“Hmm, well put the original in the ‘could be’ file and let us carry on with this one for now.”
“File saved”
“Now then Cynthia, I’m going to need a palette of pear type colours. Greens, brownish colours and something close to, but not actually, black.”
“How many…”
“Four hundred for now but we’ll probably work our way up. Also, can you load me some pre-generated pears to copy from.”
“Which variety of pear?”
“Green ones for now.”
(Galileo Rook, 2018. Application for residence – Paradoxia Grande)
“Self-awareness, limitations taught through experience plagues life and taunts its smug sentience. However, the boundaries of the possible, the probable, and the proven, present life with a unique capacity to argue the nature of existence. In doing so life finds nothing but death surrounds it, death in numbers and decay. To the best of this equation, life seeks only one purpose.”
(Galileo Rook, 2019. Distinguishing the real: The thaumaturgy of phenomenological representation. Lowden End:N.P)
…..................................................................................
The Paradoxia Grande is not so much a hotel but an incomplete reality. Allowing only so much to be represented as the human mind can produce and endure. Translating into audio and visual perception the conscious and unconscious thoughts was the height of humanity’s technology. A world of two senses and three dimensions. One hoped to unlock the truest form of community and yet one destined to fail. The spectacular atrocities of life’s inner-worlds savaged the walls and sounds of the guiltless structure causing a maelstrom of madness and murder. Haunted by the monstrosity of human thought, the hotel was soon abandoned and shunned by all but the curious. Absent of all but a singular life seeking indefatigably, the one undeniable purpose. Genesis.
“Welcome to the Paradoxia Grande. I am your concierge Galileo. How long will you be staying with us?” Galileo gave a capricious exposition.
Expressing a wondrous brevity, the man replied, “One night”.
“But of course, sir, no one ever stays any longer but it does well of me to check each time.” He continued swiftly with a practiced air, one becoming a man of excellent station.
A peculiarity arose and began the ponder “How long have you been here Galileo?”
Galileo adorned his eloquence with a hasty exaggeration, his head nodding, eventually leading to a defensive gesture of hands mockingly mime-like and, in finality, a tap to his brow. “Not taken a day off in two years now. Be a bit difficult since I’m the only person who works here. Everyone else quit, as you may imagine. In fact, it is because you imagine. Ha Ha. No. Seriously though. The place was running but no-one was home when I got here. Abandoned. I wrote letter after letter to anyone connected to the building and eventually could start work here on the agreement that I take a psychological evaluation once a week.”
“Once a week?” consternation begged.
Ambivalently “Yes, keeps the psychologist society happy.”
“And everyone else went mad?” The man plainly enquired.
Museumdly, Galileo evoked another well practiced and yet totally natural response “Not everyone, the main occurrences of violence were between husband and wife. Fantasies of sex with other people painted graphically on the wall will have that effect on a marriage. People couldn’t accept the difference between dreams and reality here. It all seemed so…how should I say…. important. no. What I mean is that people couldn’t rectify the person they saw on the walls with the person they knew in real life. Well then again, what is real if not the walls of the Grande.”
“What do you mean?” A worthwhile question to the man.
“What I mean is sir, what we see in our heads, how much of that is real to us and how much is fantasy. It is a lot easier to draw a distinction when it’s locked away in here. When it’s out, when you see it and feel it. Well then… the simulation is indistinguishable from reality. Except no-one was ever that good at it. The mind doesn’t need all the details for the pictures in our head. Its focus always shifts.” Galileo had, for this time, been as helpful as any man may be in such curious circumstances. Without the laborious details of science, he answered only with the rough description proffered to him by his own understanding.
“I must admit it is not what I expected it to be. It all seems so blank. The walls, and desk around you seem to be the only place with any life.” The trappings of the hotel were indeed unnecessarily blank, the walls and floors tending towards a hollow white, not too bright to strain the eyes but enough to provide adequate lighting for the pure white furniture.
A moment of pride ensued. “I am usually the hotel’s only resident. Myself and Cynthia the A.I. of course, but we are still a-ways from counting her. The hotel adjusts to demand and Cynthia is great for loading prefabricated experiences when you want them. That’s the way of the place sir. The system only creates what it needs to, it favours conservative pragmatism in regards to energy usage. There are rooms that are pre-loaded with décor and if you like I can provide you with a list of our highly recommended immersive experiences. Though for the most part the hotel remains in stand-by. As you move around it will become accustomed to your depth perception and you’ll soon notice the white walls receding from your vision.” He said articulating a waterfall on moss-ground stones to appear far-aways to the man’s left. Following this brief intermission, the walls returned to their untouched pearlescent veneer.
The man’s eyes spread around Galileo taking in the garnet coloured walls and mahogany desk. Gaudy red upholstery and polished wood furniture populated the area around the main reception desk, an unfinished masterpiece upon a white canvass. The candelabra glittered gold above the butler’s work station which aside from the white computer was a rich warming fibre. Looking more closely the heartwood and sapwood divides began to change, faces and shapes danced over the surface, shadows of a cloudy gaze.
“Will you and your wife be wanting separate rooms sir? We advise it due to the strain another person’s mind puts on a person.” His eyes directed towards the previously ignored figure.
“My wife?” He replied questioningly.
“Yes sir, your wife” Galileo made sport of pointing with an open palm to the woman beside him.
The spectral visage embodied obscurely the frame of a woman and disclosed no further details beyond its ample shape, no clothes to speak of, no features. A grey static smoked body wisped a nebulous hue to its edging, frayed and glossy. The man shuddered a quick semi-pounce in retreat finding his hand to the side and his other straightened out before him. This Kabuki stance lasted a few seconds as he desperately tried to reason what was before him. Galileo watched the scene with a mental applaud visibly extruded by an appreciative nod for the defensive posturing and firm footing of the stance.
“But…who…is…she?”
Dismissively, Galileo returned, “I am unable to make this assumption sir, my apologies. It must be a shade sir. Pay it no mind.”
“A shade?” perturbed by the shade’s proximity the man paled upon his reflection.
Dreamishly absent, Galileo gently explained. “Yes sir, a half-thought. Some kind of representation of a person from the psyche, they’re quite often like this.”
“What is it doing?” The man replied, increasingly affected by the encroachment upon his self-space.
“It appears to be looking at you, sir. Reaching out. The usual kind of thing.” Galileo answered maintaining his dismissive countenance.
“How long will it do that?” Eyebrows elevated, unnaturally, as the shade moved within centimetres of him.
“Well, they tend to come and go depending on what you’re thinking of sir. I suppose because it is the object of your attention, and mine, that this one shall persist for a while.” He said and stared at the figure, a brief flash of red and flesh momentarily invaded the formless voidling. Galileo looked away glancing to his hands.
“It’s trying to touch me?” The man irked pedalling backwards slightly.
Regained of jovial composure Galileo animated himself into life and with a pleasant smile, one that lifted his cheeks level with his eyes and sparked them with both wrinkles and youth. “Now, now sir. I’m sure as soon as you take an interest in some of our exceptional facilities it’ll be gone in a jiffy.”
It touched him. “Are you sure?”
“I’m almost positive sir.”
“Almost?” The man swatted away the shade causing a brief absence of it. Then, slowly, it vapoured up from its roots and resumed its entanglement with the man’s personal space.
“Well I’m not in the habit of certainties anymore sir.”
He edged away. “I think I’m going elsewhere.”
“Look, I understand the vacant face and overly wide smile may come across a little, erm... unusual. But as you can see it cannot hurt you in anyway. It is, after all, not real.”
“Is it supposed to do that?” Tendrils untouched his bumping flesh.
“It is supposed to do nothing sir, I can assure you it merely reacts to how we perceive it.” It turned a face forwards to Galileo, smiling, staring with warm hollow eyes.
“But it’s growing more grotesque.” Spider’s legs began to claw their way out of the ash-black netherous sockets.
“That’ll be your fear of it sir. Funny thing how the mind begins making things worse for itself. It’s what caused most of the issues here. People just can’t let go of their nightmares once they see them. See sir.”
Galileo remained perfectly still as it appeared a jumble of spiders came pouring out of his mouth and scattering over the desk. Forcing their legs from behind his eyes and out of his nostrils the perfectly calm face only added to the grotesque visage.
“Oh my god.” Paled the man, as his hue monochromatically translucified.
“Yes, quite tragic really, I hate the idea of being eaten by spiders and I’ve seen too many horror films where this sort of thing happens. But as you can see I’m no worse for wear of it sir.”
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t know what I was thinking, I thought….” Almost gushing like a water spout the man turned his head down, held back the rain of tears, and forced himself to look up to the candelabra and determinedly walk towards the exit.
Still more horror was descending Galileo’s unmoved features. But behind him, stalked, something far worse. An abomination of black motted husk and red pannacotta eyes, a fanged web-spinner, easing, inching, its maw closer, and closer, and closer, mandiblising with saliva. “You thought it wasn’t that bad sir. It happens, people are driven to this place. Most find their hubris here sir. No offence of course.”
“I’m leaving” He called the obvious.
“As you wish sir, would you like me to phone you a taxi?”
“Yes, as soon as possible.” The man in the charcoal suit and silver-grey cashmere scarf walked towards the revolving door. As he walked, an increasing amount of shades gathered around him. Walls slithered jagged shadows and the man’s pace increased exponentially when he noticed them. In the darkness, an amble of legs, spindly and misshapen, scurried. Thick strands descended luxurious glimmering pearls around him. Without thinking, he swung in rings before hastily reaching into his pocket for his phone, he brushed his index finger over the tip of his nose nervously before falling a step forwards. A moment later and he was gone into the sunlight. The shades turned their attention to Galileo and began a slow shuffle forwards.
Galileo sighed.
“Cynthia do you mind?”
“The shade was not a representation of his psyche. Galileo.”
“Thank you, Cynthia. Now if you will, Trafalgar square.”
Galileo looked up as the shades caressed his face. Sir Henry Havelock looked down on him in sunlight. Occasionally the birds broke their form across the ocean-blue sky and a faint breeze skipped what little rubbish there was along the pavement. And still the maw mandibilised, inches from the nape of his neck, hungering.
One shade lingered holding Galileo’s face as he tried to read the article before him. Its weightless touch preoccupied his mind.
“It’s no good Cynthia, I need to go outside for a bit and clear my head. Call a taxi for me” He paused a minute, the shades and maw scattered to dust. “No, I don’t mean for me, call a taxi for that guy.” He noticed they suddenly reconfigured as his observation of their absence made them anew.
“As you will Galileo.”
He stood up and walked with dalliance towards the front door. Pushing through he saw the man waiting for his taxi. Pulling out a cigarette Galileo began a conversation with the man.
Not long after the man’s taxi departed Galileo returned into the hotel.
“Cynthia. Load up our progress will you.”
The bath of velvet swung over the room with maroon orange radiance as he turned like a conductor of some grand harmony. The kitchen island, as yet grey and untextured, sprung from the ground opposite the window. A further wave of activity brought the door and cupboards into pace in varying levels of completion.
“Cynthia. Play me some pixelling music. Something relaxing.”
“I think today we’ll have finally put this whole apple conundrum to bed. I’m fairly certain it was this yellow and red one. And in fact, the green things were pears.”
“Do you wish me to discard the green apples from system memory?”
“No, no. We’re not that certain, we’re never that certain. Keep it in the ‘could be’ folder with the plums.”
“File saved”
“Excellent. Well what do you think?”
“It appears a very good representation of a Jonagold apple Galileo”
“Hmm. Maybe that’s not right. Jonagold sounds a bit fancy to be an apple from the Tesco Express. Can you change it to a Red Delicious size?”
“Is this correct?”
“Hmm, well put the original in the ‘could be’ file and let us carry on with this one for now.”
“File saved”
“Now then Cynthia, I’m going to need a palette of pear type colours. Greens, brownish colours and something close to, but not actually, black.”
“How many…”
“Four hundred for now but we’ll probably work our way up. Also, can you load me some pre-generated pears to copy from.”
“Which variety of pear?”
“Green ones for now.”