Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Bed 8: A Play in 2 Acts

The setting: YMCA Hostel in Basel Switzerland.

The players:
Narrator- a roaming redhead who is travelling through Europe and likes to be the thimble or top hat when she plays monopoly. Sleeps in bed 1.
Bed 2- older Italian man, a teacher, loves the fine arts
Bed 3- a very smelly hipster who thinks appropriate quiet night time getting to know you conversation inolves ranting about how the first world is terroriying and robbing the third world
Bed 4- friendly Asian girl
Bed 5- No one
Bed 6- deaf-mute Bulgarian artist who decorated his bed with pictures of himself
Bed 7- grumpy Asian man
Bed 8a- blonde German biology student named Suzanna
Bed 8b- the artists creepy friend

Prologue
I checked ina nd got settled inb ed 1, while 8a did the same. 8a then left to go explore. 6 brought in a manager and through miming asked whow as staying in bed 8. Manager explained it was a girl.

Act I, Scene i (June 5th)
I was on the computer in the lobby when I see 6 walk up to the front desk with a friend, 8b. The manager explained that bed 8 was already reserved by 8a, so 8b couldnt stay there. 6 was not happy. 8b didnt have a rservation but the manager said he could stay in bed 5.

Scene ii
I returned to the room after dinner to see 8b lying in bed 8. Thinking he and 8a had arranged a bed swap, I didnt think anything of it. He asked whose stuff was in locker 8, because he wanted to put his stuff there and seemed offended that some one elses stuff was there. This should have made me suspicious but his English was so broken I thought there was just a misunderstanding.
8b: Where are you from?
Me: America.
8b: Are you here on holiday?
Me: Yes.
8b: Do you like pot?
Me: No.
8b: Its good!
Me: ??????
8b: Im going out for a smoke.

Scene iii
8a returns to the room and freaks out because she sees that some one has been sleeping in her bed and taken the key to her locker so she cant get her stuff. Turns out 8b stole her bed, Im guessing at the request of 6. 8a gets a manager, and I inform them of the conversation I had heard in the lobby, where another manager explicitely told 8b that he couldnt sleep in bed 8. After much fuss, 8a switches rooms for the night and the manager opens her locker for her.

3 introduces himself to me as Im settling in to go to sleep. We get to chatting and I mention how expensive food here is. He starts ranting that all the wealth in the world is only owned by 20% of the population and the Swiss and American armies are going into poor countries and robbing and terrorzing them and somehow I am a part of all this. Dude, its not my fault Im an American, I havent robbed or terroriyed anybody, shut up because Im trying to sleep.

Act II, Scene i (9 AM on June 6th)
A manager is in the room and 8b is packing to leave. 6 is asleep.

Scene ii
8a returns to claim her bed, with the support of a manager, 4, and me who was woken up and dragged into the whole mess. 6 wakes up and refuses to let 8a into her bed. She tries to explain that its her bed and using very violent sign language 6 refuses to let her have it and demands she takes bed 5 instead (which she couldnt because 1. you dont give in to rude demands like that and 2. the hostel was full that night). 2 wakes up and can apparently communicate with 6. He tries to explain that 8a needs the bed. 8b is nowhere to be seen. After mcuh fighting everyone goes downstairs to work it out. 4 informs me that 2 and 6 actually live in the hostel. 7 starts banging on the side of the bed and making angry shushing sounds.

Epilogue
2 and 6 had to switch rooms anyways so 8a got her bed. I was still stuck next to smelly 3.

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