“I’m sorry sir, but there is a problem with your room and we will have to move you to another room,” says the heavily-accented voice on the phone. I look around the room. We’ve just arrived, and I can see no problems. Everything looks fine to me.
“What’s the problem?” I ask.
The man replies in a serious tone, “There will be a voice in your room.”
A chill runs down my spine. A voice? Like, the disembodied voice of a ghost, perhaps the moody spirit of a guest who passed away in the room?
Maybe I’ve misunderstood him. “So, tell me again, what is the problem?”
“There will be a voice in your room.”
“And we should leave before the voice starts talking?”
“Yes,” he says earnestly.
I put my hand over the receiver and tell Jeanne that we have to change rooms because there will be a voice in our room.
She raises her eyebrows. “A voice?”
“Apparently so,” I say.
I return my attendance to the phone. “Are you absolutely certain that there will be a voice in our room?”
“Yes, sir. I’m so sorry. It will be gone by tomorrow and you can move back into the room.”
I cup the receiver one again. “The voice will apparently be gone by tomorrow,” I say to Jeanne.
“Oh, goody,” she says, her eyebrows still raised.
“Okay,” I tell the man on the phone. “We certainly don’t want to be in a room with a voice.”
“No, sir,” he agrees fervently. “I will send someone up to help with your luggage.”
I hang up the phone, regretting my decision a little. Perhaps I should’ve insisted that we stay despite the imminent arrival of an uninvited voice. What if the voice has something interesting to say? What if it tells funny jokes?
But it is too late. The man arrives to help us move our backpacks to the new room, where there will be no voice.
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