Purple Words: Hotel Atlantis

Hotel Atlantis

The Travel Agent used his best whiney,

wheedling voice to relay his spiel.

It was of course the Truth which made it

that much better to lie with.

“Down there, you will know nothing

but peace in her mansions

in the endless night of her coils.”

She was being offered the vacation

of a lifetime: the chance to stay in Atlantis

or what was being billed as Atlantis anyway

in a deep-water Hotel that rested

on the Continental Shelf off Mexico.

Her last vacation had been to the Wild,

Wild West where the wildness had primarily

come from the crowd of Streakers

with their unorthodox approach to style,

fashion and even the necessity of clothing.

She wasn’t that kind of person and Atlantis

seemed considerably calmer: the perfect place

to recuperate from her too too busy life.

She just hoped that it wasn’t claustrophobic

under all that water, below the Sun’s weak rays

beneath the fish, sharks and manta rays:

it wasn’t the place to go to get a tan.

There was the nearby sunken human sculpture

garden becoming more reef-like by the day.

She got the literature and said she would

think about it: The Hotel Atlantis wasn’t

easy to get to and was quite expensive.

She thought of another Hotel which was easy

to get into, but difficult to get out of:

which was figured into her vacation plans.

The amenities were splendid, but would she

feel like a prisoner instead of as a guest?

---Purple Mark 08/25/2012

Purple Prompts:                                                                         

1. “It was, of course, the truth, which made it that much better to lie with.” Susan Schwartz from the story ‘Revolts In The Desert’ Dark Destiny III: Children Of Dracula, (White Wolf Publishing 1996). Page 350.
2. “Down there,” Jacova whispers, “you will know nothing but peace, in her mansions, in the endless night of her coils.” Edited by Ellen Datlow. Caitlín R. Kiernan from the story ‘Houses Under The Sea’ Lovecraft Unbound. (Dark Horse Books, 2009) Page 193.
3. “It is not unusual, here in the wild, wild west to come across free-spirited individuals with an unorthodox approach to style, fashion, and, yes, even the necessity of clothes.” Rebecca M. Hale. How To Moon A Cat (Berkley Prime Crime, 2011). Page 147.