Come one, come all, to The Pink Lemonade Hotel, to sip the pink lemonade that
flows like the wine of Eden if there had been wine in Eden, though there is nothing
alcoholic about the pink lemonade at the Pink Lemonade Hotel, though it produces a
similar effect to alcohol, but more so, much more so, and without the hangover, or
the guilty conscience, for The Pink Lemonade Hotel is a coveted place, a highly
regarded place, all the world over, though the liquid it offers hits the lips of only the
select few, as there is a very long waitlist to become a guest at The Pink Lemonade
Hotel. To vacation at The Pink Lemonade Hotel means to be awash in the delights
owed to someone who has worked hard, or whose ancestors worked hard, and flew
right, and did with their time the prescribed things, the things that turn pain trite in
the face of progress, real progress, towards an unflagging goal, a goal like The Pink
Lemonade Hotel. The lady guests of The Pink Lemonade Hotel resemble very much
the other, waiting patiently in the interminable pink lemonade line, set in the
Diversion Room, a vast wood-encrusted place with pristine windows that peer onto a
gushing river, The Pink Lemonade Hotel perched in its way over this river like a slice
of lemon on the rim of a glass; and as these ladies wait they chat, and smell the
others’ heady perfume, take in their timeless, waxen hair that could be covered by a
fine net, it stays so still—though it may just be a very fine hairspray that leaves it this
way, emitted from a can that cost very little to produce, a can that when used wreaks
havoc upon the outer layer of the atmosphere, the one the Pink Lemonade Hotel
hearkens towards in its pamphlets and brochures, extolling its promise of paradise.
Yes, The Pink Lemonade Hotel prints brochures, though they are redundant, because
everyone who’s anyone knows about The Pink Lemonade Hotel, around as it has
been for generations, tucked behind, like the wedge of a lemon on a glass. And the
men of The Pink Lemonade Hotel, they stand smoking, as they wait for their pink
lemonade in the Diversion Room, from long-winded pipes that have surpassed the
stage of relic, and in their own way they are as well-preserved as the women, their
hair fresh beneath its invisible net, how it lays and creases over, and implies their not
having a care in the world, nary a to-do, patrons as they are at The Pink Lemonade
Hotel, spontaneous in their starched clothing, waiting in line for as long as it takes for
their pink lemonade, flowing as it does in the ether of The Pink Lemonade Hotel, un-
mincing with the dross of urban humanity. So that to arrive in this filtered space, this
divine chimera of speckling ambers and goldens, that play over the surface of the pink
lemonade in its vats, mingling with every pore of a pink lemonade hotel guests’ skin,
is to be in the one place where the pores can open, the city toxicities come spilling out,
The Pink Lemonade Hotel patrons wiping the pustules away with silk handkerchiefs,
discreetly, making their skin to shine, their weariness of privilege sinking to the very
bottom of the pink lemonade glass. Because at The Pink Lemonade Hotel it doesn’t
matter how much money you have, to be there renders absurd the need for such
concerns, so that when patrons of The Pink Lemonade Hotel wait in line for the pink
lemonade to flow languidly into its waxy cups, syrupy and drizzling, they know that
this is not something to feel annoyed about, all this waiting, or to get huffy over,
because it is coveted this time, that their friends from home wish they could wait
through, this lush and clock-less time, penciled out many months ago; and so it is
best, even expected, that they should wait a very long time for their pink lemonade,
that it should flow gelatinous and heavy into their cups, croaking and wilting with the
entry.
