HOTEL FUGGER

Did I ever tell you that Hotel Fugger was once called The Hotel View Hotel? Yeah, it was. The old name came from the fact that every window in the hotel looked out onto another part of the hotel. The architecture was inspired by Bentham's Panopticon - no matter where you are you can be seen so you better watch what you're doing because someone might be looking. This was originally intended to prevent the theft of towels but the approach soon grew into a philosophy of sorts or, to be more precise, a way of 'being'. The Hotel View Hotel was considered a true escape from the world outside. Once booked in, the guests were encouraged to forget about everything beyond the lobby's revolving doors. House rules requested that conversation solely concern matters pertaining to the hotel: the evening's menu, gossip about other guests, the beige furnishings, the stale aroma, the mangy cat, the lack of toilet rolls and so on. To discuss the world outside the hotel risked inviting disapproving glances, mockery or even being sent to Coventry.

All books and periodicals were confiscated so as to prevent the residents being distracted from the residence. There was only the hotel - the stars and sun and birds and trees, the clouds and continents and constructs of the outside world vanished from the consciousness of the guests. The guests stopped contacting the friends and family they had known before their stay at The Hotel View Hotel. They quit their professions. They earned their keep by working in the hotel.

Soon all the exits to the building were sealed up. The only doors remaining were ones that led back in, which didn't bother anyone because no one ever left. And so things continued for a time and everyone was perfectly happy. Well, not 'happy' maybe but content or at least contentish. Well, they were prepared to pretend they were contentish, let's just put it that way. So, you know, it was as good a life as anyone might expect to live and that was about as good a life as anyone expected. That is until the food shortage. That's right, the kitchen ran out of food. Well, it was bound to happen wasn't it? The guests/staff had even discussed it. A concerned receptionist actually gave a presentation about it in the function room. Our Incommodious Future, that's what she called her lecture. Everyone listened and worried but no one did anything. I mean, what could they do? Well, one guy suggested they leave the hotel and go to the shops but he was dismissed as a crank. 'We'll eat the potted plants instead', they said and they did until there were no plants and then someone proposed that they eat the stationary and they did until that was all gobbled up and finally they decided to eat toothpaste and soap and stuff like that and that's how they were found - curled up, emaciated and blue, gobs afroth with mixed toiletries.

So anyway, I got the place for cheap. No one wanted to buy a sealed off multi-chambered mausoleum so I bought it for next to nothing, renamed it and reopened its doors. There's a weird vibe here I admit. A lot of dead prayers got buried in these walls. Things are heard at night. The mangy cat is sometimes seen. Some of the people that come to stay are purely here in the hopes of experiencing something grim or even spectral – expecting the dead to provide a new perspective on life. Most of my guests are just here for the cheap rooms though. They aren't fussy. They don't notice the heavy atmosphere because similar fugs have enveloped them their entire lives. They are the lost and the wounded. Sometimes they are those that seek to wound the lost. Sometimes they are the lost who unintentionally wound others. Last night a guest jumped to her death from an upper floor window and landed on another guest, a murderer returning from a night's kill. Weird eh? Barely a morning passes when we don't find an auto-asphyxiated onanist dangling in a wardrobe or a broken necked drunk crumpled at the bottom of a stairwell. I'm fair about it. I warn people before they book in. They book in anyway. I think it's the irresistible draw of defeat. A fatalistic surrender to a self-destined doom. Or maybe it's the ultimate protest against the sheer effort required to imagine things turning out some other way. Either way, the guests of Hotel Fugger consider that there's no other way.

You'll find a skull in the minibar and see a corpse in the mirror. The shower curtain is a sheet of human epidermis. The flowers are plastic but they're all dead anyway. A single room is only twelve fifty. Leave a tip near your cold stiff body.

Right so, now that that's done, I think we'll have a bit of a tune will we? We will, we'll have a song...

HOW TO STOP LIVING – WITHOUT DYING

(Pictured: it's no use missus, he's left the building)

So, I came back to Earth with a sound like a slightly exasperated sigh that no one noticed. There I was, manifest again; vapour coalesced into matter. I had come from the place where nothing is everything and everything isn't anywhere to be seen. I was Nowhere and it was neither interesting nor uninteresting. It was nothing. You get there by going through this thing that is like a thing, you know the sort of thing, and then you are there and you know you're there because there is nothing there and you are nowhere at all. There isn't really much that can be said about the place other than saying that being Nowhere makes you nothing and not existing can be quite relaxing.

Would you like to try not existing yourself? I bet you would. It's all the rage with the kids these days. I'll show you how if you want. Nonexistence is quite an easy state to achieve but be warned, the process is often irreversible.

There are actually two ways to achieve nonexistence. One is to die. People don't like doing that. It goes against their nature. They are big into being alive and all that (fair enough, each to their own) so the alternative route to nonexistence is the one that appeals to most. The other way to achieve nonexistence is to stop living without dying. Here's how to do it:

To stop living without dying you must first discard the locus of all that keeps you moored to this plane of existence. This is your corporeal housing - your body and the identity it has been given. To dispense with this you must repeat your name over and over and over again until it just sounds like a load of syllables and no longer sounds like it has anything to do with you. Do this while staring at yourself naked in a full length mirror. Concentrate on your face in particular. Examine it and stare at it until it cognitively reduces to nothing more than an amalgamation of features and is no longer something by which you are defined. It is just a communication tool, a conveyer of contrivance, something that is either being insincere or involuntarily betraying your insincerity. Your face is just a mask. Your head is just a helmet. Your body is just a suit. These things are not you. Take them off.

If you have done the above you will find you have upped anchor and sailed away from the grounded and socially enforced sense of self that is considered the only one possible in today's physicalist culture. What does this feel like you may wonder? Well, it's pretty much an out of body experience. You will become a spirit. You will regard your body and the name it is called as things that are associated with you but no more you than the car you drive or your telephone number. You will float in a world unmediated by words and all the insidious assumptions that come with them. You will be in a world of ideas and potential. A world of mental energy. A world undecided. The world of spirits. (Spirits are not the same thing as ghosts by the way, ghosts are echoes of the dead, spirits are very much alive.)

You will float around (it's not really floating but that's as close as I can get to describing it) and you will see things for what they are and everything they possibly could become, which is nothing at all. I can't really describe what it is like to you any better than that because your ability properly grasp the experience is akin to a goldfish's ability to get a decent idea of the world outside of its bowl. It's beyond your comprehension but believe this: if you follow my instructions and stop living without dying you will be free. Remember though, once free it is very hard to be recaptured. Unlike me, you'll probably never return to the prison of your body. Your body will not be dead but it will be considered catatonic and moved to a medical facility where it can be fed through a drip and filled with flamboyant drugs.

What do you think the story is with all those catatonic people? When you are looking at a catatonic person you are looking at an empty prison cell. The spirit of the entity that once was trapped there has long since escaped and now roams free. This is what is really meant by the popular phrase, 'set your spirit free'. Of course, you'd never hear Dobbo say that on the Six-One News but that's because the powers that be want to keep us all on the physical plane. 'They' need us here so 'They' have made us prisoners in their invisible prison. 'They' are masters of this illusory domain, this battery farm for brains, this cognitive concentration camp.

'Who are 'They'?', I hear you ask. Well, that's a story for another time. Not next time but a time close to next time. Maybe even the time after next time or maybe I'll never bother telling you who 'They' are at all. Who knows? It all depends what mood I'm in.

THE AFTER-AFTERLIFE

Life is kind of intertwined with the afterlife. There's usually a ghost in the room with you. Someone you know, laughing at your jokes and listening to music with you. You can't see them though. They can only see you. They are always there. Don't worry, they tend not to hang around if you're doing anything private or intimate or whatever. Ghosts largely respect privacy.

It's sad being a ghost in the afterlife. They are always alone. The world is full of ghosts but they can't see each other. It's like they are on different frequencies, like radio stations that can never listen to each other. So, you're all they have for company. They are there at family gatherings and so on, unnoticed and unnoticeable in the corner. Enjoying the craic but sad really. Did you ever see some old friends from a bus window and wave but they didn't see you as they walked on, enjoying each other's company? Being a ghost is a bit like that.

A ghost will hang around watching loved ones live their lives and then those loved ones die and the ghost is left even more alone. New people move into the building and the ghost is left watching them, like it might a new TV show that has replaced its favourite. This is when ghosts start getting bored and feeling really lonely. This is when they might knock down a picture or slam a door shut. It requires a lot of effort for a ghost to slam a door shut. They have to build up to it for weeks. It's a real event for them. They slam the door and then they observe the reaction of the living. The living usually note the oddness of the occurrence and might remark on it a few times before eventually dismissing it and forgetting all about it. The exhausted ghost's little thrill at the slight acknowledgment will pass and the ghost will sit and pant and recall how easy it once was to slam doors shut and to open them. The ghost will probably wonder which it did more of while alive: slamming doors shut or opening them. The ghost will probably regret all the doors it slammed shut during its often lovely and sometimes unlovely existence; slamming doors shut on other people, slamming doors shut on itself, and eventually having the door of life slammed shut in its face. 'Ooh, I really wasted my life', say the ghosts to themselves. This is usually when ghosts start moaning and rattling their chains and that's when the living call the exorcist and that's when another door opens for the ghost and the ghost goes through it. On the other side of this door, the ghost discovers the after-afterlife. The after-afterlife is just a load of former-ghosts (ghosts of ghosts, if you will) that no longer worry about what they did when they were alive and instead spend all their time worrying about what they did when they were ghosts. 'Ooh, I really wasted my death', say the former-ghosts to themselves. The moaning and the chain rattling starts up again at this point but there is no one to call an exorcist and, even if there was, there is nowhere to move on to. It's a noisy place the after-afterlife and it's getting more and more full.

THE GHOST OF A LAUGH

Every Halloween all the ghosts have a fancy dress party. 'What does a ghost dress up as for Halloween?' I hear you ask. I'll tell you; at Halloween ghosts dress up as the living. Eugene (beloved husband and father, 1927 – 1988) is particularly enthusiastic. He gives everyone a good laugh, donning a wig and a suit and clomping around in heavy boots. He puts on a real show, shouting out statements like 'oh boy, I think I'm going to be late for work' and 'I'm really angry at the government'. Eugene's mockery of the piffling concerns of the living is always of great amusement to the other ghosts because the ghosts have passed on to a realm that transcends all trivia. From their vantage point, the whole of human life seems an unimportant charade. The ghosts regard living human concerns in the same way that a living adult might regard a child's concerns. A kid breaks a toy and it is the end of their world, they weep and wail and curse unjust fate, but the adult knows that it doesn't really matter. The adult knows that the kid will grow up and forget all about that toy. Likewise, the paltry triumphs and petty indignities experienced by the living every single day are regarded by ghosts as inconsequential.

The ghosts see us live, suffering or thriving, laughing or weeping, and they know it doesn't matter because they can also see the great astral engine, grinding and shaking and generally being monumental. All dwarfs in comparison to the great astral engine that powers the cosmos and beyond. So, the ghosts guffaw as Eugene mocks, pretending he is in love or at war or going for a haircut of returning a faulty product to the shops. 'I'm going to write to the newspaper about this', says Eugene, feigning outrage in his dopey living human voice and all the ghosts hold their transparent tummies and laugh and laugh and laugh. And then Eugene gets tired and sits down as spectral tears of uncanny mirth are wiped from eerie eyes. The sense of fun abates and a lull descends. 'What'll we do now?' asks Katja (beloved daughter and drug mule, 1969 – 1997). 'We could have a bit of float around the place', suggests Bill (shot for cowardice, 1891 - 1917) but no one likes that idea. They can do that anytime. It's usually around now that the ghosts once again become aware of the astral engine, churning and coughing and keeping them here for ever and ever. They may mock the trivial preoccupations of the living but, deep down in their former hearts, ghosts envy the highs and lows experienced by those still alive, no matter how naive or piddling. The ghosts miss the innocent exuberance and even the incidental despair. Ghosts envy the living in the same way an adult might envy the simplicity of a child. It may be silly but it's life. The ghosts silently reflect on this as they sit in their cloudy prison, hearing the great engine chug and being haunted themselves by the ghost of a laugh.

THE DESIRE OF THE LIVING TO KILL

A big war was being planned in the name of freedom and patriotism and other sacrosanct and rarely interrogated concepts. In an attempt to prevent this new big war, the ghosts of all those who had died in previous wars decided to manifest, en masse, at various significant locations around the world. The idea was that the ghosts would appear and tell the living that war just isn't worth it and is a bit of a shit idea. 'We'll spook them into coming up with a better option', said one of the ghosts before they all appeared.

So, all the ghosts manifested around the world. They were quite a sight to see. The ghosts ranged from troglodytes who had come a cropper in tribal skirmishes to little kid ghosts who had recently lost their lives after stepping on land mines. Great war heroes of the past were also amongst their number and did most of the talking. The ghosts made their point clearly and then refused to leave until their advice had been adhered to.

The leaders of the living world met and discussed the dead. It was decided that the wishes of the dead were irrelevant because, unlike the wars of the past, this new war was definitely worth having due to freedom and all that. The ghosts were termed 'appeasers from beyond the grave' and it was decided that they would have to be dealt with. 'The ghosts are a threat to freedom', said a great thinker in a newspaper and this sentiment went viral and got lots of 'likes' on politics.ie and other heavyweight intellectual fora.

The militaries of the world joined forces for a time and trained in the new discipline of combative exorcism. The ghosts didn't stand a chance and were sent back to the afterlife. Then, after a global victory celebration, the nations of the world resumed their plan to embark on a big new war and did so and loads of people got killed and new ghosts were made.

Those who were made ghosts in the new war went on to the afterlife and met all the other war dead who had tried to stop them fighting. 'So, was it worth it?' the old ghosts asked the new ghosts. Some of the new ghosts, the spirits of civilian casualties mainly, agreed that the new war was not worth it and that nothing had really changed for the better in the end. Those amongst the new ghosts who had died as members of the military in the various fields of operation pointed out that the conflict may have been worthwhile as they had received posthumous medals and that those medals were shiny. The military ghosts continued in this belief until they looked down on the world of the living and observed their descendants getting their medals appraised on The Antiques Roadshow and selling them off to eccentric war enthusiasts for disappointing profits of around a tenner a piece.

Wars continued after that and they were bitterly recalled by the losers and celebrated by the winers and the medals of all sides continued to be sold for fuck all. The new wars created new ghosts and those new ghosts joined the other ghosts of former wars in the vast borough of the afterlife that is reserved for those who die due to war. 'It's getting crowded here', noted one ghost and all the other ghosts agreed but they also knew that they could do nothing about it. As much as these ghosts would like to prevent the living from prematurely dying, their desire is nothing when compared to the desire of the living to kill.

THE SOULS OF THE DEAD

Imagine if everywhere in the world was haunted. They'd have to make TV shows about houses that weren't haunted. The shows would be called things like Britain's Most Unhaunted. 'Ooh, nothing has moved by itself for ages, creepy.' They would have seances and get really freaked out when the planchette didn't move. There would be legends of a headed horseman. Children would be scared that there is nothing under the bed. Superstitious people wouldn't like taking shortcuts through graveyards in case they didn't see a ghost. I could go on but you get the gist of it.

In a world like this ghosts would be commonplace. It would be accepted that you die and you become a ghost and you hang around your old haunts. In some respects it wouldn't be too bad being a ghost. The pressure would be off. You wouldn't have to earn money to feed and shelter yourself and all that. However, there would be a bad side. Ghosts stop. They stop still. They can't learn anymore. They can't understand new technology or social advances. They can't comprehend that times and preoccupations change. They can't mature or become wiser as people. They can't move on. They are like stuck records, stuck at the moment of their deaths. If they have a grievance or an issue that is unresolved it will remain unresolved. They will continue to fret and worry about it until the end of time. That's why ghosts are always seen doing the same thing, looking for someone they were parted with or whatever. Ghosts are a bit OCD.

In a world where everywhere is haunted people would accept the existence of ghosts but they would find ghosts pretty boring. 'Oh Jaysus, is he still going on about how he was wronged by his brother and thrown down the well. What a repetitive dick .' Ghosts would be considered something to be humoured and tolerated. They'd be a bit like the friends or colleagues we all have who keep banging on and on about the same thing over and over. You know the type. They get on their hobby horse and you just nod. You don't want to be rude but privately you wish they were dead. Except maybe they are dead. Maybe they keep going over and over the same ground because they are ghosts. Did you ever consider that? They'll always be there, going on and on and on and on and they'll never stop going on and on and on and on. They may be irritating but maybe you should pity them. It's sad really. You might even be a ghost yourself. Does the same shit go around and around and around and around in your head? Has this been going on for years? Well maybe you're a ghost. Maybe you're dead. If you're not dead yet, you better address your obsessions. Otherwise, when you eventually do die, you'll be stuck with your obsessions until the end of time. Going on and on and on and on.

Come to think of it, I reckon I might be a ghost. I tend to just appear and corner people and moan and moan and moan about the same old crap. I'm usually moaning about the telly. Maybe in the future that's what ghosts will be seen doing – sitting in front of a spectral goggle box, continually pressing a remote control and muttering about what a useless tit Ryan Tubridy is.

I've a friend who's even worse than me. He got so repetitive it became a real problem. He became obsessed with how repetitive he was and he kept talking about it, which was very repetitive. The irony of that escaped him. He went to see a shrink about his problem. 'It's not a therapist you need, it's an exorcist', said the shrink as he walked my friend into a nearby graveyard and pointed at his tombstone. Then the shrink charged my friend €750. Being a ghost, my friend had no money so the shrink charged it to my friend's widow. She had to take the fee from the money my friend left her. She was outraged. She keeps going on about it. She'll take that grievance to her grave. And beyond.

I think I'll write about ghosts for the rest of the month because it's October and Halloween approaches. Halloween - a time when the souls of the dead return. The souls of the dead boring.

The Thing in the Road.

Seeking a solution to the aforementioned supernatural/paranormal tomfoolery/high-jinx that is afoot in my town and spreading throughout the country at large, I have found myself consulting the work of Lady Gregory. In her attempt to assemble an archive of Irish folk beliefs, Lady Gregory spent a large part of the early 20th century travelling the hills of Sligo collecting tales of Fortean phenomena said to have been experienced by the various bog men she found there. It was amongst the folk wisdoms of these first hand accounts that I hoped to find some remedy to our current economic/occult predicament.

Gregory records an odd event that took place late one February night on a muddy road that ran raggedly from the foot of Ben Bulben. The tale of The Thing in the Road became one of the most celebrated paranormal incidents of its time and is even said to have once been referred to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, during a drunken tirade launched at his wife.

Anyway, without further ado, I will reproduce the accounts, as recorded by Lady Gregory, of the people who were actually there on the night. If you catch sight of anything that may be of assistance amongst the insanity of the garbled rustic parlance below please let me know.

The Thing in the Road: testimonies by boggers of a fiend that they happened upon whilst drunkenly travelling a pitch dark path at four o'clock in the morning (possibly after taking mushies).

Husband: 'There was something in the road that night. You could tell it was there because it wasn't somewhere else. It had a shape but it wasn't like a shape and it rolled forward like a duck doesn't or a goose either for that matter. It was as big as it was small and twice that size again. It wasn't comely, you wouldn't go toward it.'

Wife of Husband: 'I saw it also. At first I thought it was a cow but it wasn't. It was nothing like a cow and there was no reason to think it was a cow at all. It wasn't a cow or anything like that. It wasn't a horse either. I thought it was a cow and it could've been I suppose but for the fact that it wasn't.'

Brother of Wife of Husband: 'It was fierce. It looked fierce and it smelled it also. There was a stench of fierceness in the road and that is all I will say on the matter.'

Wife of Brother of Wife of Husband: 'My heart was above me at the sight of it. My heart was above me and to either side of me and behind and below me and there before me at the sight of it on the road.'

Father of Wife of Brother of Wife of Husband: 'I'll neither confirm nor deny that I saw it but see it I did and it wasn't there at all.'

Brother of Father of Wife of Brother of Wife of Husband: 'I thought it was something the faery ride upon. It had no hooves. It let a tremendous belch. It called me a gee-bag.'

Random Bogger: It was faery but not good faery, not comely, you would be reluctant to make its acquaintance. There was badness to it. You should never cross a faery's path. Never close a gate upon a faery or speak badly of one's footwear. It called us gee-bags. I didn't like it at all. It might have been a protestant. You know, the grass is so thick there you could grease your boots with it.'

The End.

I'm not sure if reading endless streams of this Lady Gregory stuff is helping. Beyond my window I can hear the pitiful wails of a nation being poisoned, paralysed and slowly eaten alive by the hideous scuttling mega-spider that is Nyx. There must be something that can be done, something, . . .going forward.

The Youth of Today!

I awoke at 4a.m. with a profound feeling of unease. Then I saw these cheeky blighters standing at the end of the bed. They were giggling in a weird way and started moving the furniture about the place just by looking at it. 'Get back to your tenements,' I roared and chased them out of it with a brush.

...before they floated out the window they said something like 'Mummy is coming, Mummy is coming for all of you, like a horrible great shadow, she will creep into your world'. Then they giggled and vanished into the gloom.

I've no idea what that means, probably something to do with young people's rap music. Next time I'm contacting the gardai.

Anyhoo, ...has anyone noticed a sudden chill in the air?