The Grand Rearrangement

-- 10pm

A matte black card slides through the scanner. Beep. Beep.

The door opens with a whir. I step through, ensure the machine knows I’m clocked in. A crisp night breeze attacks the suit on my shoulders. I stretch for a bit, just to waste some time, and then step in. As the door shuts, I hear the weak ringing of the timeworn brass bell attached to the frame.

Welcome to the Grand Hotel. Founded 1925.

The founder, David Hilbert, proposed the idea of an infinite hotel in a lecture. No-one expected he’d go through with it. Only seventeen years later, he unveiled the Grand Hotel, a vast property with floors reaching up to, supposedly, infinity. It became wildly popular.

He died a year later.

Guests don’t really ask about the history anymore, but it’s part of the script. Every staff member learns it. When you work somewhere like this, you get used to explaining things that don't make sense. You stop worrying about logic. You worry about who’s in Room 1, who’s checking in, and how many doors to shift everyone.

I push open the polished oak flap and step out behind the counter, the shoddy cherry carpet behind the desk giving way to cream-tiled floors. I glance at the chandelier at the entrance room, glass bending warm light in different directions. Stare at it, holding my breath.

It doesn’t fall.

I sigh, disappointed, and prop my arms onto the unusually warm desk. Stretch out the uniform’s stiff collar. Grab one of the complimentary cookies meant ‘only for guests’. The manager never checks anyway. The cheap plastic crinkles as I pull out a tragically undersized plain cookie and eat it in one bite.

Unexpectedly, people decided to keep the hotel’s legacy. People volunteered to become staff. An anonymous magnate managed to furnish the whole place.

I’m not quite sure when the so called “Grand Hotel” began to fill up, but since then the demand has never stopped. It stays fully occupied indefinitely. Or it doesn’t, depending on how you see it.

That’s why I’m here. I work nights. Fewer complaints. Fewer complications.

Ding!

The bell rings, as if it’s been waiting all night for this.

I zone back in to find a couple. They’re either newlywed, or extremely stylish. I smile at them.

“Greetings, and welcome to the Grand Hotel. How many rooms would you like?”

When they say two, I’m not surprised.

This is standard procedure. I pick up the mouthpiece and let it run for about three seconds. “Attention, all esteemed guests of the Grand Hotel. We have some new guests. Please move to the room two doors to your right, I repeat, two doors to your right. One to three, two to four, three to five, and so on. Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful night!”

I smile toothlessly to the couple, as if sharing an inside joke. On cue, all the guests open their door and step outside. The endless creaking of doors run through the corridor and rattle away. Then, they move, quietly, two doors to their right. I see an obviously drunk lady, an old man in his blue striped pyjamas. Everyone seems at least mildly annoyed, which I smile at. It’s probably the only entertainment I can get this shift. A few whispered arguments between bad mathematicians. A few shouted arguments up on a floor I can’t mentally comprehend.

“I repeat, two doors to the right. Thank you.”

The muffled shouting stops. I assume they’ve found their rooms.

I tell the couple that Room 1 & 2 is ready. “Be ready to move out pretty soon, though.” They laugh like it’s some kind of weird joke, and thank me sufficiently as they make their way to their rooms, their laughter echoing obnoxiously.

-- 12am

That’s exactly how we handle things now. Infinity is odd – move everyone up one, and suddenly there’s a space. Of course, the price is inversely proportional to the room number. The higher the number, the cheaper the stay. Room Infinity is free, but good luck finding it.

I glance at the brass clock near the stairwell. Midnight. The halfway point. Still too early for the weird stuff, just late enough to start hoping I won’t get any more guests.

Through the crystal door, I spy multiple trippers. I brace myself.

The crystal door wildly opens, revealing some vacationers wearing bright, colourful clothing, covered in designs filled with lemniscates, clashing horribly with the hotel’s refined reds and golds. Probably thinking they seem culturally enlightened. I grimace. Wearing that is like going into a Starbucks (left, left, then a right, I tell customers), and asking for an authentic doppio espresso.

Predictably, they’re loud and amazed that they’ve found the very Hilbert’s hotel.

“Wow!”, one of them stage-whispers. “The infinite hotel!” The others agree with murmurs and gasps. I roll my eyes. It’s very easy to be awed by the concept of infinity, I want to tell them, but once you get over it …it’s just tediously endless. Addition over and over again. However, I don’t say this. Instead, I smile. Flash my teeth, as if I’m genuinely happy to be here.

“I see you’ve found the Grand Hotel! Welcome. How many rooms?”

The leader of the group, ecstatically wearing a lemon hoodie with the distinctive double loop of the infinity sign, tells me 10. I scribble this down in the logbook. He pays. The group watches me intently as I pick up the mouthpiece, smile again to appease them. They tense up, anticipate my announcement…

“Please move ten doors to your right.” Then I put it down.

I can see all of the tourists sag slightly, as if wanting a grand entrance deserving of the Grand Hotel, assuming I would’ve given them one.

I smile, a genuine one now, and tell them their rooms will be ready. They shuffle off awkwardly.

-- 4am

I had forgotten how tired these shifts make me. Now I could feel the sun brightening, its heat reaching beneath my skin.

As if to keep me awake, the ancient rotary phone rings, rattling echoing far further than the noise it was supposed to make. Frustrated, I reach for the guest phone—still and silent.

Shocked, still unbelieving, I look across to the counter. It’s the staff phone. I scramble across the floor to pick it up. It’s very rare that I ever get to speak to other staff members, mostly because they’re usually up on higher floors like room service or cleaning.

“Cleaning.”, a female voice cuts through. “Rayo’s room is… dirty.”

For a room to earn that title here, it has to be apocalyptic. “What’s happened?”

The voice sighs. “…Faeces… on the walls. Some family decided it would be great to leave the baby alone in there. I’m going to need a move up, excluding Rayo.”

I grin guiltily. “Understood.” I place down the phone, slowly. Then I chuckle to myself, ever so slightly. Poor woman. I pick up the mouthpiece.

“Attention, esteemed guests of the Grand Hotel. Due to temporary maintenance, Room ‘Rayo’ is currently unavailable. Rooms after Rayo’s number—”

I pause, take a breath. I wonder if anyone knows this number at all.

“- please move one to the right. I repeat, one to the right. Thank you.” I carefully place it down.

I hang up. A moment passes. I hear barely audible creaking in a polite chain reaction, shuffling, and the closing of doors.

--5:50am

Tired, I glance at the analog clock. It’s ten minutes to go. Nine. I lean on the counter, now warm but not surprisingly so.

Eight now. I can see a timid intern walking through the doors, needlessly early. A younger boy, probably about sixteen. He stands, shifting, by the double-doors. I offer him a cookie. He shakes his head.

The street outside begins to hum. Then rumble. Then roar. First, one car. Then a minibus. Then a bus. Then another, slightly longer bus.

They don’t stop.

Vehicles round the corner like they’re being multiplied. Each one slightly newer, or older, or more broken than the last. I stop counting after a while. I assume someone, somewhere, is keeping track.

They never do.

I check the clock, looking to it for guidance. Two to. I pray that my shift ends before they can enter. Outside, I can see the blurry outline of people shuffling, pushing, arguing in the lot. It’s one to. I grab the signout card, desperately. It feels like forever.

6am. I sprint to the machine, shoving in my card for two seconds, then pulling it out. I don’t even check if it’s registered.

I pass the stricken intern, eyes wide as he stares at the line of vehicles trailing endlessly down the block.

“Double the room numbers,” I tell him. That’s all he needs. He’ll figure it out. Or he won’t.

Either way, as my black soles hit the pavement, I think: not my problem anymore.