Bedtime story teller

She is a bedtime story teller by profession, works in a hotel which offers such a thoughtful service to customers who can not find mattress and pillow comfortable enough.

When she went for the interview, the first question by interviewer is unsurprisingly predictable.

“Why do you consider yourself as a good bedtime story teller?” The hotel manager who works in this long history classy hotel asked.

“I have abundant knowledge in terms of literature, good skills of story telling, unbeatable patience…”she answered. “And most of all, I have been an insomniac since age 19.”

“I fully understand people who suffer from not being able to fall asleep, I heart them.” She ended.

The hotel manager nodded with satisfaction and then offered her the job. Though he didn’t ask why she has had insomnia.

She starts working right away, moves into the hotel and stays 24:7 on duty. There is another bedtime story teller working in the hotel, but they have always been busy serving different customers and shuttling among varied room numbers, they have never had the chance to meet.

The other bedtime story teller, she imagines how this person is like, and wonders whether this unknown colleague could ever possibly cure her insomnia.

One day she really can’t hold her curiosity, so she slides sneakily into a hotel room when she spots the business-suited guest steps out the room, her customer last night, who fell asleep finally when she read him “Un long dimanche de fiançailles”. She pretends to be that guest and calls for room service. Wait in the room with patience and anxiety at the same time, for this maybe chance to cure her awakening life for the past decade.

Someone knocks the door.

There enters a tall young man, a bit untidy blonde hair, with sleepy eyes, shiningly blue reminds her so much of that Mediterranean vacation which her parents paid as her birthday gift to celebrate her 20’s. The best vacation ever in her life, sun, white sand, seafood, laughter, and her secret first love; even she just made it to greet that boy the first thing every morning when they met on the beach. Very short eye contact, she remembers his eyes always sparkle like a clear summer nighttime sky. Every night before bed she took a deep breath and prayed to meet that neighbour boy the morning afterwards.

This breath-taking happy moment seemed to be everlasting, seemed to be.

He quietly comes to her, the other bedtime story teller, gently sits next to her on the bed, and opens an old book whose cover is already torn and grayish.

She asks for his name before he starts.

“I was your lullaby; you forgot to say goodnight to me before you left.” He smiles with shyness and says.

(Inspired by the news “At London hotel, room service brings bedtime stories” http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2008-04-11-hotel-reader_N.htm)