Welcome to the Q(ueue) - Episode 2 - Por si las Moscas

[The following farcical serial fiction may be unsuitable for readers under 18]

{In the EU’s newest member state—Hallico—ruthless competition exists for exceedingly wealthy, eccentrically depressed clientèle seeking luxurious euthanasia. Digging its niche in this hotel-cum-hospice market via personalized service, a family-run boutique competes with 5-star properties to put these mortality tourists in the grave.}

'Irasshaimase Senorita Wintour,

Knowing you chose the Q from among Halle’s exclusive hospice hotels, we are positively delighted to have the privilege of assisting your check-out. You will join an esteemed list of souls who’ve passed on from our fourteen suites over the decades.

To update your preference sheet, you’ve only to indicate, and it’s done. We’re in the art of curating perfect last meals, final fairytale excursions, idol meet-and-greets, parting aspirational parties, and any other funereal event one might crave.

You’re now in the capable hands of Julieta, Nahual’s in-suite butler, who’ll directly satisfy most desires. For any that require additional assistance, she’ll be happy to coordinate with the Front Office.

Here at the Q, we support your right to rest in peace. So while our boutique offers nightly soirées in the ground floor salon Baile de los Muertos, feel free to embrace the serener amenities of your soundproof accommodations.

We’d simply request, should an early departure be selected, that you consider our coniferous courtyard instead of your suite, as a courtesy to future guests whose reservation commencement dates we’d also like to honor.

Warmest regards,

Diego and Saki Fernandez

Hoteliers’

Mouth full of dried peyote buttons, Zelda, who’d only made it as far as ‘Wintour’, peered over her mescaline-rich welcome platter—but below digitally animated wallpaper with characters metamorphosing between humans and either wolves, owls, bats, or turkeys—through the baseboard window into a sea of trees.

Under a canopy of Veitch’s Fir, the Q’s Feelings Consultant and ordained minister TAKUMI FERNANDEZ (30) beamed between lovebirds on the oya stone bridge spanning a koi pond; a smile maintained despite the magenta chip from last evening’s visit to Halle’s red light district of Gonorroe incidentally stuck in his trusa waistband and presently digging into his hip. To Princess Noora Al-Amri in a Val Taguba black bridal gown and venture capitalist Paul Neville in a Tom Ford Wool Mohair Shelton tuxedo, “Now that the couple, utterly dead inside, has declared their short-lived love, I ask those gathered for objections. Speak now or hold your peace until they start their deep slumber.”

Noora and Paul’s eyes darted around the undulating forest.

At their feet, Claudia—the Q’s emotional support chihuahua and this wedding’s witness—yapped.

The Feelings Consultant, whose credentials included both an Emotional Management certificate issued by the Hallish government for sitting through a two day seminar ten years ago—plus—twelve months of eating, praying, and loving a la Elizabeth Gilbert, petted Claudia, “Thank you, but no, the bride can’t still be married.” To more barking, he whispered so as not to rub salt in the wound of she who’d aged-out of the harem, “Sadly, Senorita Al-Amri fell off a camel and snapped her neck in the Arabian Desert.” Off Claudia’s tilted head toward the Princess breathing not two feet from her, “Truly. Al Jazeera fact-checked the Kingdom’s press release.”

Takumi rose above the whimpering dog and chuckled to set the tensely hopeful pair at ease. “On to your vow—”

“Bloody hell!”

“Pardon?,” cast Takumi into the sword fern density.

“Shouldn’t I be in shock!?”

“Over where pray tell did you run the razor?”

“My todger!”

Sighing at a move more commonplace that one might imagine, the minister radioed via his Yves Saint Laurent silk crepe jacket’s lapel microphone, “Feelings to Medical, Feelings to Medical, we’ve a guest in the courtyard with a botched early departure.”

Through his ear came a flustered feminine register, “Rikai shita.”

Saki Fernandez, stewing about her upcoming Palliative Care Conference panel with the tosser who was Limbo’s Dr. Death, downed her paloma on the rocks. Sliding a stethoscope from her white coat pocket that she slipped round her neck, the citrus-breathed proprietor came out of the pantry to a room full of produce-chopping PREP COOKS and boiling soups. Saki yanked a first-aid kit off the wall, set her highball glass in the sink, and kept walking in the wake of a sudden wail.

“My thumb!”

“Put it on ice.”

“You can’t just le—”

“—ft you some in the glass!”

The house doctor’s coat and Saint Laurent long-sleeved chantilly lace dress were misted as she came through the dish room and ducked under a plate-clinking tub held by their COMMIS DE SALLE prior to striding into the kitchen—

—past a simmering pan of camarones rancheros before pushing open saloon doors behind the WAITER balancing plates of tomahawk pork chop, enchiladas poblanas, and braised angus short ribs on his outstretched arm out into—

—the lively lunch service of Baile de los Muertos where he delivered these sizzling entrées to a table of MOUTHWATERING SMILES while she herself veered right—

—beyond the Q’s confessional toward the courtyard’s glass entrance when she overheard a question shouted as the guttural statement, “Her number, now!”

“There remains no accompanying guest listed in our system who matches your ID.” Reception-stationed Front Office Manager KIKO FERNANDEZ (40) readjusted her eyes to scrutinize the iPhone image shoved in her face; that of a Snapchat Story screen-shot with club-clad Noora twerking on Paul in the salon and the Q tagged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“The—room—of—my—haram—princess,” spelled out fag-smoking CROWN PRINCE KHALID AL-AMRI (49) for the umpteenth time while flanked by his cadre of combat-booted SECURITY PERSONNEL. After unbuttoning his GG denim jacquard jacket and tossing it to his lead Bodyguard MO SAAD (47), he posed with hands on hips to strike a power stance and flaunt his recently purchased pectorals beneath a likewise Gucci cotton polo.

“I will search again.” Stifling another wave of nausea crashing across her esophagus like it had at 4 A.M., the Front Office Manager in a YSL knit draped collar dress wagged her finger between the Hermes Brides de Gala HEADSCARVED WOMEN behind he who’d maxed out his home country’s wifely allotment. “So I’m typing the harlot’s name correctly, how do you spell hers?”

“You disrespect my wives?”

“My money’s on the teenager.”

“Sara has been a halal princess.”

“The sooner you accept—”

“Her Royal Highness—.”

“—likes to mix it up with men not dependent on PDE inhibitors, the better.”

A glare later at giggle-smuggling PRINCESS SARA AL-AMRI (18) donning a pair of cat-eye sunglasses, “She has nothing to do with this.”

“I think she has everything to do with this.”

“Enough! Faisal, Abdul, with me. We are scouring this property.”

When two particularly burly bodyguards escorted His Royal Highness with a full head of steam toward the parota mezzanine ramp, the front office manager nodded imperceptibility toward her younger brother behind the concierge desk.

“Allow me to assist,” inserted AYASE FERNANDEZ (35) heading them off before they took the incline to the courtyard.

Puffing smoke into Ayase’s face on each word, “We—will—manage.” He stepped, but oddly found himself shifting sideways with one leg up like a flamingo.

Having funneled the prince toward the lift with a subtly angled posture and raised palm, “It won’t operate without a key; that of guest, or, staff.”

The Crown Prince stared intently at the longer engraved key manifesting from a YSL striped wool gabardine jacket’s breast pocket bearing Les Clefs d'Or. Raising his gaze to the Chef Concierge himself, “You fail to bring me directly to her room and I will make you disappear...slowly.”

Ayase, although not counting among the heir’s servants, raised a hand over his waving Adam’s Apple like Khalid’s household staff wishing they were at the end in Aigokhura.

While cursing, crotch-bandaged novelist Masud Chowdhury was bouncily rolled from the courtyard on a cart by ex-Sumo wrestler and current Orderly JUNYA NISHIDA (34), Paul’s blue eyes pierced Noora’s round brown pair with adoration most men reserved for their god. Simultaneously, Noora’s slender almond diamond-dotted digit was locked lovingly around Paul’s sturdy ivory finger bearing his wedding band, both purchased on their behalf only this morning by Ayase from the superb selection at Maison de Conflict on Heiden Street.

The soulmates entirely lost in one another were a portrait of happily-ever-after.

Because it was a black eye on the brand if guests became so delighted as to lead lives longer than their reservations though, Takumi caught the eyebrow-raise of his mum, who no doubt dually envisioned those marketing pendejos in Limbo sharing this couple’s aspirational honeymoon Facebook album ad nauseam.

Discreetly then, Takumi tugged the token from his trousers and set it in the V formed by Paul’s buttoned tux jacket. Stepping back to his officiant position, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

They leaned in, their honeyed lips tingled warmly together, and Noora jerked backward—stunning Paul in the process.

Dipping two fingers down her décolletage, she plucked out the tiny disc displaying a Lady of the Night in some nondescript brothel doorway. A menacing visage cemented on the Crown Prince’s children’s mother squeezing it until chipped paint flecked her French-manicured nails.

In response to destruction of two thousand euros within the right two hundred meter radius, Paul winced like she’d drawn juice from his two berries.

As with an altered vantage while viewing an optical illusion, the man responsible for managing guest emotions—grinned—at a depiction of the Depression Sweet Spot.

Stood back from the sink where she’d manipulated face flannels into drowning children, portly Housekeeping Manager ESTEFANIA FERNANDEZ (78) admired her painstaking origami effort when, on the heels of repeated thumping, the figures tipped and unfurled in the partially-filled basin. Estefania padded across the master bedroom’s heated bathroom tiles, chancla in-hand.

Khalid slammed shut a series of cupboard and drawer doors he’d wrenched ajar in the chef’s kitchen of the La Llorona suite. He wrapped around its parota island and descended talavera steps into the sunken sitting room beneath a ceiling fresco; that of a scorned wife who’d spotted her husband’s infidelity through an open house window. Stopping short of the IN-SUITE BUTLER (36) dusting a plinth-situated, medieval device that teared blood from a bas-relief woman’s eye when the tortured’s hand was cut by a rotating knife, “What’s the name of your guest?”

From the foyer’s near side and to Khalid’s back, Ayase frantically crossed and uncrossed his arms.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” replied DAIZEN NISHIDA (36) wearing YSL wide leg tuxedo trousers in grain de poudre below a matching jacket.

“Then how have you been addressing your better?”

“Madam.”

“Where is the Madam now?”

“The Madam did not furnish me with her itinerary.”

“When did the Madam last leave the room?”

“This morning was when I last saw the Madam.”

“With all of the Madam’s belongings?”

Daizen looked to Ayase for an out until he found his own hand being strapped to the torture device’s plate beneath the blade. The point dropped down and—thwack—thud—hovered millimeters from his flesh.

Hobbling down the steps, Estefania recollected her sandal from beside unconscious Khalid. Redness dripped from his jaggedly wounded forehead onto the floor. “Dios mio; I just—scrubbed that floor.”

Ayase and Daizen exchanged panicked glances at the sound of four size-fifteen boots clomping through the foyer like the headless horseman’s steed.

Face slit half a dozen times on either side by nail-grooved plastic, grumbling Paul Neville took the lead on their walk up the ramped pier. Closer to the greenhouse than the property’s gravel roundabout were the nearly married pair restrained from one another. Though, in fairness to Mr. Neville, Takumi Fernandez was forced to put forth far less physical effort than his madre.

“You said I was your one and only!,” fought Noora Al-Amri through the house doctor’s arms.

“Water under the bridge, darling,” calmed Saki Fernandez holding her back.

“That’ll linger forever on my tongue!,” turned Noora on Saki.

“Death will dull such bitterness,” countered Saki dodging a finger to the eye.

“I used to like strawberry milk!”

“Strawberry, chocolate, banana; there’s also no need to cry over spilled—”

“-dairy after it coalesced with his case of the runs?!”

As the hotelier took a step back to work out those maths, the exiled princess bolted past her—tackling unprepared Takumi into Paul—disappearing beneath seawater not so deep as what destroyed his private island after a typhoon, but much colder if his surfaced shivering shoulders were honest.

Takumi turned round toward the engawa and whistled.

“I can’t swim!”

“Our rescue canine is coming!,” assured Takumi to Paul appearing less confident as prancing Claudia arrived, leapt, and splashed beside his thrashing body.