Maintenance (Part IV) - A fiction jot for Freewrite #255 - ornate

bennettitalia (65)in #freewrite • 6 years ago (edited)

Greetings fellow Steemians, here is my 64th 5 minute freewrite. (Disclaimer: these usually take me significantly longer than 5 minutes to write). The prompt was "ornate".

This is Part IV of a continuing story.

Part I: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/maintenance-a-fiction-tidbit-for-weekend-freewrite-6-23-2018

Part II: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/maintenance-part-ii-a-fiction-smidgen-for-freewrite-248-suffers-in-silence

Part III: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/maintenance-part-iii-a-fiction-smidgen-for-freewrite-249-bath

Come check out the goings on at @freewritehouse! Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this wonderful daily freewrite :) https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-256-5-minute-freewrite-sunday-prompt-ornate

https://pixabay.com/en/living-room-victorian-historic-581073/

Maintenance (Part IV)

The great staircase which ascends from the entrance hall to the upper reaches of the Equilibratorium is not for the faint of heart, but few people know the real reason why. This is partly because the outlandish tales one is likely to hear about it are almost universally true. One could, for instance, climb it literally forever, if one so chose (or by accident if one didn't know what one was doing), and it is therefore advisable for acrophobes to wear a charm or to bring along a phial of something that will ward off the fear of heights, perpetually if need be. Which is an excellent reason to be cautious, but it isn't the real reason. It's also true that one could find oneself mistakenly opening the door to any chamber, in any part of the universe, known or unknown, if one isn't careful, which is certainly a daunting prospect, but that isn't the real reason either. The real reason is this: you have to be perfectly sure, in both your mind and heart, of where you want to go, in order to get there. And who among us is ever so sure?

Marjorie was pretty fucking sure that she was exhausted. Not the good kind of exhausted, the sweaty, dirty kind you get when you've been hiking, or swimming, or working outside all day, and your body, grateful to you for spending so much time in its world, doing the kinds of things it likes to do, is ready to reward you with the best night of sleep you've ever had. No, this was the kind of exhaustion that came from worrying too hard, for too long, about something over which she had little to no actual control, but which she nonetheless felt responsible for. She was Head Custodian, after all. She was supposed to keep the place in order. And in ordinary circumstances, she was quite good at it. Her dubious talents as Demigoddess of Patience-With-Idiots helped, she supposed. The problem was that she had very little idea of how to have patience with herself when she felt like one. A true test, and one that, at the moment, she seemed to be failing.

So she was very sure that she needed to relax, and wanted nothing more at this moment than to get back to her own suite, take a nice hot bath (complete with bubble galaxies, whirlpool elementals, jewel-winged dragonfly breezes, inter-dimensional aromatherapy, and the music of the subatomic spheres), and then afterwards summon the ice cream fairy and order up some free-per-view.

Which made her all the more certain that it was her own door she'd opened. The inside of the place looked exactly like hers: the small foyer, containing her coatrack, her shoes, sandals, boots, the little bench, the snake plant (which hissed at her affectionately), and the framed four dimensional portrait of Mary Shelley. Then the living room, complete with overstuffed couch, universal fully interactive entertainment system, and several articles of laundry flung about, one camisole in particular made luminously noticeable by the lily pad lamp it was haphazardly draped over. But when she got to the bathroom...

Well, that certainly wasn't her tub. It was huge, for one thing. Big enough to fit at least ten people. The ornate scrollwork along the outside of it was way over the top for her taste. The walls all around the tub were... well, they weren't there. Not really. Instead she was looking out, in all directions, at a night sky filled with stars brighter than any she had ever seen. The bath itself had already been drawn, and this alone was exactly as she would have done it: bubble galaxies, whirlpool elementals, jewel-winged dragonfly breezes, inter-dimensional aromatherapy, and music of the subatomic spheres. She heard the door close behind her with a click, but when she turned back she found that it had disappeared without a trace. She was alone in the universe. With a giant (but very inviting) bathtub.