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It has been 8 days since the man had visited last. Precisely--eight days, three hours, five minutes, 68,000 nanoseconds. By no rare feat in any measure did the Doorman recall it, only with the marked precision regularly employed in his daily duties. The Doorman scrutinized to the atom, by his nature.
He recalled the initial check-in. 7:00 am, two nights, room 315. Not to the degree of being invasive--he suffered such punctuality, one must understand. He only hoped that his guest would when the Doorman recited the details of his stay later that evening. In any case, his guest made for a light burden to the third floor when luggage piled onto the cart. The Doorman noted the efficiency utilized in such packing.
Something of a neuroticism to this guest, who the Doorman noticed fretting at the skirt of his gown every time his hands came away from a foreign surface. He often removed his small black gloves, only to replace them again moments later. The guest thanked the Doorman several times on the way up for even the subtle adjustments made for his benefit--all the way to the designated room. The Doorman gave as always his polite dismissal, leaving the man to his own devices and inviting him to enjoy his stay.
And again, "--Thank you, thank you so much." Dollars hastily passed to a white cotton glove. The obligation seen through.
The guest passed his way about the hotel dining and lounges in no remarkable way. He complained of being between conferences while making conversation with strangers who wholly entertained or wholly ignored his impassioned rantings about his work. Those who listened inquired on the goings on at the local museums, about the archeology of the occult and mundane. He always answered, at times risking his own leaving on time to do so thoroughly. More than once the Doorman ushered the doors open ahead of him and wished the guest well on his latest exploit. He kept the sly looks to himself as the man rushed off and wrestled with stray hair--never forgetting his thanks to the Doorman.
Never once did the oft-repeated gratitude fail in rousing a smile from the Baroness' finest.
At dinnertime, the Doorman found himself in the dining hall, where he encountered the guest once again. He approached and made suggestions to him about what best from the menu to enjoy. The guest needn't know that all the Doorman's suggestions came of heard feedback and that he, himself, had scarce need to eat. What better to use his pool of knowledge for than to enhance one guest's experience?
Such conversation invited a further divulging of the day's happenings. How the Doorman did so enjoy when his curiosity and practiced conversation lead to fruitful places. He learned, then, that his guest--who the Doorman now appreciated in better proximity--worked in museum curation. The other told him of the conferences being held in the city, on the ethics of discoveries made most recently in archeology, in guidelines for hosting items from across planes. All sounded quite stimulating intellectually, which the Doorman admitted. This prompted further explanations, to which the guest warmed in his affect to give.
The Doorman found himself stood fast at the side of the table. As his conversation partner shifted to lean closer, the Doorman caught a scent of amber and musk wafting from the other's cuffed sleeves. He nodded in understanding while he listened to a deliberation on artifacts and civilizations old and poorly understood. The smell of the perfume and the topic at hand roused memories of places well known to the Doorman, but long antiquated and buried. Seldom did even the most ancient of spectral guests at the Baroness conjure places familiar to his past. So scarce did anyone extant, supernatural or otherwise on this plane, reach into the longevity of the prehistoric. His luminous eyes lulled into the murky scene of a world young and covered in warm, shallow oceans...to the first buddings of life from the primordial waters. The musk brought to mind herbs and trees once trampled in the wake of hulking megafauna in their migrations...of the animal bodies treading in geyser-riddled wilderness...
"I'm sorry?"
The Doorman's eyes widened, his brow lifting.
"Excuse me. And you were saying?"
"Sorry if I lost you."
"No, not all I. I was...reminded of something. Please, do continue. You were talking about Ixian funerary urns, I believe."
"Right--"
He neglected his duties for a much-deserved half hour at the table. The Doorman did not afford himself these spare and much-wanted moments away from his constant surveying of the building. Once he conceded to pulling out the chair behind him and making of it his seat, the Doorman sat back, assured that none of the hotel staff would make an enemy of her longest-serving attendant over thirty minutes spent off his post. He folded his hands on the tablecloth.
He wouldn't have let those others take this from him, anyway. And so he enjoyed the conversation of the timeless in a place warm and oh so gratefully situated in the present.