Comfort Room - Or The Seven Dreams of Frank Diggory

The First Day

Paraiso Subdivision was bathed in the inky blackness of night. Despite its precisely manicured lawns and hedges and the clean perfection of its highway and alleys, stray dogs lay in the middle of the street, sleeping soundly before the tarmac became intolerably hot, meaning that traffic barrelling down the road – of which there was none – would have to slalom round them.

High up on the hillside, in a large, angular concrete villa, the roof of which was clad in satellite dishes leaning intently towards the sky, a shrill electronic alarm smashed through the quiet. A sleepy brown hand reached out of the gloom and slapped it silent once more.

Ethan Peteros, a small, podgy, male figure, gazed at the display on the alarm clock and sighed.

5:45am.

Another early rise. He hated it, but it had to be done.

He rolled out of bed and fell onto the floor, before clumsily detangling himself from his thin blanket and raising himself up onto his feet. He slipped on a silky dressing gown, meandered through to his classy, modern breakfast kitchen, poured himself a large cup of coffee from a bubbling coffee maker and headed through to his enlarged lounge.

In front of him was a huge bank of curved wide-screen monitors, a wireless keyboard and mouse on a dark glass table. In a small room behind the monitors, LED lights on black server cabinets hyperactively blinked and twinkled their activity, as if justifying their existence to no-one but him.

‘Lights on!’ he commanded in his exaggeratingly Americanised Filipino accent, as if he’d just stepped off a Trans-Pacific plane, but the closest he’d got to one was a simulator game on his computer.

The lights woke up and flickered into life, dazzling him as they did so.

He tapped a key on his keyboard. One after the other, each of his monitors flickered on and displayed CCTV pictures from various locations in the Subdivision.

He used his mouse, opened some video conferencing software, and triggered a group chat.

Weary faces of multiple people in the Subdivision appeared, most disgruntled, on camera: the bus driver, the restaurant owner, the convenience store owner, the DJ of a local radio station. Also present was the boss of the Tourism Office down in Ormoc City.

‘Maayong buntag, tanan!’ he greeted them, with forced caffeine-fuelled enthusiasm.

He was met with a chorus of grunts.

No matter.

‘Okay. Well. Never mind.’ He cleared his throat. ‘He’s not yet awake, but I thought I’d call to make sure we’re all ready and have our game face on.’

Their faces were an orchestra of glares.

‘This the only face I have, Sir Ethan.’ the restaurant owner glowered. ‘What game should I play with it?’

Ethan ignored him completely.

‘You all know the plan. I’ll keep you updated. I’ll be watching over it all. Just remember: mas dako nga kalipay, mas dako nga kwarta.’ Ethan tried, and miserably failed, to enthuse them.

He was meant by a chorus of sighs.

‘Just do your best to keep him happy. That’s all.’ Ethan told them, his disappointment plain.

‘Yeah, yeah, we get it. Keep him happy until he remembers.’ the bus driver moaned.

Ethan corrected him. ‘Or better still, he doesn’t.’

The convenience store owner, a greying woman in her upper middle age, folded her hands and stared at Ethan disapprovingly. ‘So we end up serving that afam until when?’ she snapped. ‘How long do you expect us to keep this going?’