Friction
surreal short fiction by Rhonda Parrish
Friction—it’s a source of heat, of energy; it’s an irritant, causing rashes and burns due to the aforementioned heat; and apparently, the source of what keeps the decadent jewel-in-the-desert’s heart beating.
Consider it a peek behind the mirror, or beneath the elevator, or through the fountain—and into the underside itself.
Friction
by Rhonda Parrish
“It’s not the sin itself, you understand,” he says, and for a moment you’re no longer facing a chubby guy in an ill-fitting hotel security uniform but a warty frog-like creature. Its lumpy body is plopped like ice cream in a cone, on impossibly skinny, long legs jointed not just at the knees but in the middle of what should be his thighs as well. Greenish brown skin which bubbles with pustules and looks as though it would be slimy to the touch covers its misshapen body.
Then the elevator dings to announce that you’ve descended another floor and as quickly as that you’re looking at a pudgy brunette once more. Just as mundane as anything. Boring as your going-nowhere job back home whose only perk is that it pays enough for you to save up and come here every year.
Maybe it’s true, the rumours that they add things to the air in these hotels. You’d heard oxygen to keep people awake and… come to think of it, when was the last time you slept?
“It’s not the sin,” he says again, as though nothing odd has just happened. And maybe for him it hasn’t. Maybe instead of going to hit the casino you really ought to be hitting the sack. Except you can sleep anywhere. You didn’t come here to sleep. “It’s the friction between the action you do and what you think you should do. The tension between the sin and the sinner. That’s where the power is.”
“I’m sorry, what?” you croak out, trying to claw your way past that weird vision and back to reality.
“The power. The magic, if you must, that powers the place.”
“The magic? I—what place?”
“This whole place. The jewel of the desert.” When you continue to stare at him blankly he rolls his eyes. “The city.”
Still you gape at him, suddenly unsure which of you is the crazy one. You eye the emergency stop button, but wouldn’t that just lock you in here with him? Better to just ride this out until the elevator ride is done. How much longer can—you glance up at the numbers above the door—fifteen more floors take?
“The city is magic?” you say, humouring him until you can get off the elevator.
“Of course it is.” From nowhere he produces a cheap Bic lighter—but it can’t really have been from nowhere, not really, probably he just pulled it from a pocket when you weren’t looking—and flicks it. You hear the sound of the flint against the steel and a single bobbing flame appears. “From the friction between the sin and the sinner. The action and the conscience.”
“Right,” you say. Twelve more to go.
“And of course each hotel has an additional enchantment,” he croaked. “Glamour up the façade, set the energy just right—invite people in. Make ’em feel just a bit reckless, just a bit ‘What happens here stays here so we can go a bit wild’. Make them less inhibited about spending their cash…”
Eleven.
“Those need an additional source, of course.”
“Of course,” you agree, wondering if you’ve managed to find the slowest elevator in the entire city.
“Take this place, for example. Our friction comes from the soul in the fountain.”
“The soul in the fountain,” you repeat flatly. Nine.
“Every thirty minutes the spell starts to slip and it flails against the restraining magic. Then the speakers crackle, the music starts…”
Eight.
“The song is an incantation. The water’s dance a ritual.”
Seven.
“Rebuilding the cage. Drip by drip.”
Six.
“Reinforcing the magic. Drop by drop.”
Five.
“Friction.”
“How’d they get the soul?” you hear yourself ask.
“Fair trade,” he laughs, a deep, wet, guttural sound that doesn’t feel like it should be coming out of that face. From that body.
Four.
You remember the flash of a hallucination—vision—you had several floors ago, and this time it’s harder to dismiss as a result of lack of sleep, or an urban legend about gasses piped in through the hotel’s ventilation systems.
Three.
“You’d be surprised what people will trade for a little luck at the tables.”
Two.
Would you? How many times had you made deals with God? Let this one come up a winner and I’ll go to church every Sunday. Let me win this hand and I’ll never drink again. I’ll be a different person. A better person…
Casino.
“Well, here we are,” the man says as the elevator dings the main floor and the doors slide open. He stands to the side and gestures for you to go first. Hotel staff always gesture for you to go first.
As you step out of the quiet of the elevator, the hustle, bustle and white noise of the hotel lobby burns away the fear that had begun to settle into your belly during that long ride down from your room. That had been weird. Being stuck in that elevator alone with that strange man, but this was real life. This was normal.
Well, normal for this city anyway.
You find a stream in the crush of people that is headed in the direction you want to go and join in, bumping and rubbing against them as you pinball your way along. Reaching the lobby you pause for a moment to watch through the glass doors as the giant fountains outside put on their show. They wave elegantly to their audience before bursting into towers of water 460 feet tall. It’s dramatic and beautiful.
Drip by drip, the man said. Drop by drop.
Someone bumps into you from behind, jostling you out of your thoughts and, with a shake of your head you turn left and head into the casino.
Today is going to be your lucky day. You can just feel it.
Meet the author:
Like a magpie, Rhonda Parrish is constantly distracted by shiny things. She’s the editor of many anthologies and author of plenty of books, stories and poems (some of which have even won awards!). She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and she can often be found there playing Dungeons and Dragons, bingeing crime dramas, making blankets or cheering on the Oilers. Her website, updated regularly, is at http://www.rhondaparrish.com and her Patreon, updated even more regularly, is at https://www.patreon.com/RhondaParrish.
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