Steve zipped up the bag and headed back to the hotel. The same black cloud, of gloom, that of his waking, enveloped him. He hunted through his possessions to no avail. The items had definitely gone while he was in reception. Before making for their point of disappearance, he shoved a new pad and his other fountain pen in the bag. His world was crumbling like the structure of Notre Dame on that fateful April morning.
“Excuse me miss. I think I have been robbed,” he said to the receptionist. She regarded him with alarm.
“I am sorry sir, can I help in any way?” She replied, glancing around as if the perpetrators were still around. Steve wanted to scream, “Yes I want her back. I’ve only just found her!” Instead, he nodded vigorously.
“CCTV?” His dessicated vocal chords struggled to create anything more.
“Of course sir. I’ll call the manager,” the young woman responded, turning to enter the room behind her. Steve nodded again in gratitude and took a seat in the foyer. He stared at the spot where he’d stood moments earlier, and lost his life.
He took the pen and pad from his backpack and opened the first page. Closing his eyes tight, he regurgitated every word, every item of punctuation, from the pages of the missing book. Then, he created another scene. The one before his eyes. Steve described the clinically modern interior of Le Petit Nice Hotel in intricate detail. Finally he gave her an entrance that would have put Cleopatra to shame, making sure she had every attribute to do so. His imagination needed no help as he’d seen her in the flesh, twice.
Placing the pen on the pad, he waited, and waited – nothing. He was yanked back to reality by a voice behind him. A male voice.
“May I help you sir? I understand you’ve lost something,” the manager said officiously.
“Yes, I was here not so long ago. On my way to an appointment. I placed my bag here.” Steve indicated the point in front of him.
“Let us take a look at the evidence,” the man countered, no less intrusive than earlier. Steve followed his gesture and they entered a small room to the right. They leaned over the shoulder of the security guard as he flipped through time. People came and went at speed. Then he stopped at the timeframe of Steve’s exit.
“There!” he said urgently, “that’s me, the time is perfect.” The man slowed the video to normal speed. As Steve walked over to the boy with his mail, someone entered stage right. As usual the images weren’t that clear. However, one could make out that the hooded thief was slightly built, almost definitely a youth. It only took him seconds to violate the bag, to the point where there weren’t enough frames to show the actual incident. The guard played the few seconds over several times then shook his head.
“The gentleman was definitely robbed, that we can see. However the identity of the thief is impossible to ascertain,” he said to his superior. They both turned to Steve and shook their heads. He felt as if he’d been given a terminal diagnosis by two separate doctors.
Steve returned to his room and lay on the bed, reading the words, as if he needed to. Something about the thief niggled him. The grey hoodie, the tight fitting Levi’s, the black and white sneakers, almost certainly Converse. With those details in mind, he dozed off.
He woke up several hours later, his head buzzing with a hangover like pain. He splashed some cold water on his puffy eyes and straightened his hair. To carry on the story, was his decision as he took up the tools of his trade.
***
Several days passed and Steve sat in his usual spot. The apprehension disappeared with every passing day, along with his creativity. After a week, he was back at square one. The last word lay on his page like that mouldy pastry. He had writer’s block of the worst kind. His train had not only hit the buffers, it had been derailed. He glanced up in hopeless desperation, and something caught his eye, someone. The grainy youth from the camera footage was standing a few feet away, holding his magical possessions. Before he could speak a voice like a combination of every pleasurable sound his ears had ever encountered, uttered.
“Good morning. I see you’re a writer. May I join you? I am also a writer, a published novelist actually.” Steve was paralysed by the words of the youth. He handed him the book and pen. “You won’t be needing this anymore.”
The thief pulled up a chair and sat opposite Steve. The hood was pulled down revealing the identity of his tormentor.
“Now, where were we,” she said.
Intriguing