The Hotel Uova Rotte by Talia Fechter

Sofia and Michael don’t ask too many questions at the front desk. It’s always Sofia and Michael at the front desk, thank God. Nobody else has the tact required to be the first face of the hotel.

“Name?” they ask. “How long? No, don’t worry about it, we’ll place it on the cart.”

The hotel is incredibly fine. It echoes Margret Thatcher at the Ritz, with enough contrast to fill a darkroom. The gilded mirrors, the art, the lush plants and chandeliers never match the sometimes sobbing, sometimes screaming, sometimes suspiciously blood-covered clientele. But Sofia and Michael don’t ask too many questions. They just ask the name and how long, and place the corpse the client dragged in on the cart.

There is a break room, just like any other workplace. It looks much worse than the rest of the establishment, just like any other workplace. Inside, Sofia and Michael are chatting, waiting for the morning rush to begin. There is always a lull between 2:00 and 3:00.

Suddenly, the lull extends to their conversation. Michael fumbles with the sleeve on his coffee cup. He looks up to Sofia, who is expertly cooking eggs on the single burner. She has done this a thousand times before. He has sat there a thousand times before. He’d been about to say it a thousand times before. But today, a woman came in and dropped off a dog. A beautiful dog, with soft fur and a kind face. They’ve never had a dog before.

He looks up and takes in a breath.

“Have you ever really thought about what we do?” Sofia doesn’t even move in acknowledgement; instead, she presses the spatula down on the eggs. In the cramped, windowless room, the sound is deafening.

“Sofia!” She turns the gas down.

“I heard you. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“We are so used to people, why does a dog mess with—”

“I don’t know. I said I don’t want to talk about it!” She reaches up for plates and doles out an uneven amount onto the two plates. She sets the one with less down in front of Michael with a clatter and says,

“Eggs.”

“Yes, eggs,” smiles Michael. “Thanks.” Sitting down, Sofia stares at her eggs. In a quiet, soft voice Michael had never heard from her, she says without looking up,

“What do you think they’ll do with him?”

“I don’t know. I… yeah. I don’t know.” You don’t do this job with one other person for five years without getting close. They didn’t talk much about their little lives outside of work, but they spent almost every day together with the same task — shove it out of your mind. Shove it out shove it out don’t think about it don’t talk about it shut that part of your brain off it’s the only way to get through it stop stop don’t think about it!

A ding! is followed by silence. Again, ding! Michael and Sofia finally look up at each other. They leave their eggs to get cold. Get on with it.