twenty-four hours to their prepubescent physical and spiritual condition, free of all adult anxieties and repressions and perversities, albeit wiser in the ways of the world, dressed in their own clothing from that time, if they have supplied it, else from clothing specially fashioned for them from photographs, and sent out to play with other children their seeming age or, if they wish, to enter into and explore their own pasts in an interactive museum whose exhibits change with each new set of guests.
Admission into the Grand Hotel Nymphlight is not easily obtained, not only because it is the most popular of all the grand hotels, booked up months, even years, in advance, but also because those seeking entry are required to provide a vast array of support materials to assist the engineering staff in all their recreative tasks, including photographs and films, drawings, clothing, games and toys, dolls, balls, uniforms, comic books, names and types of pets, and lists of everything from childhood sports and hobbies, favorite foods, books, and movies to happiest and saddest moments, secret childtime wishes, dreams. Merely to have kept or remembered all these things is enough to suggest that the prospective guest who supplies them is ideally suited for an overnight in the hotel. There are many, of course, who long for such an experience but who have few or no support materials to offer, and, though it is against hotel policy, they often borrow these things from others or buy new. They thereby relive a childhood they never knew—one probably more delightful than their own forgotten one, for delight is the principal aim of the hotel—whereupon their night in the Grand Hotel Nymphlight becomes in effect their “true memory” of childhood. As it ought, for to be without any other is a sad thing. All guests must leave behind some of the support materials they have brought—usually a toy plus an article or two of clothing—as partial payment for their stay, and these items become the property of the hotel management. Children who are children now are also admitted, and much more freely, partly to intensify the experience of the children from other times, but also simply because they are loved. For them, the room rates are exceptionally low, especially if unaccompanied by an adult, usually little more than a frock, a shirt, a hairband or bracelet, a toy. Thus, one cannot be sure if it is a real child one is playing with or an adult reliving her childhood, and this is part of the joy and wonder of it all.
If the playhouse dimensions make full-grown adults feel ill at ease, that was probably the original intention of the architect, though it was also necessary to create a structure that would fit comfortably and unobtrusively within the Hotel Lost Domain, which embraces it; not itself one of the grand hotels, being imitative (neo-Gothic in a depressed sort of way) and of little architectural significance, yet nearly as popular as the hotel which it contains, and especially with the elderly. The Hotel Lost Domain has but one compellingly attractive feature, which is the sole reason for its popularity: All its rooms peer in upon the Grand Hotel Nymphlight. From them, one can immerse oneself all day in the magical world of children—and all night, too, for what is more pleasurable than watching, unwatched, sleeping boys and girls, their dreams on view like ghostly videos? Some of the Lost Domain clientele are virtually permanent residents, but others include prospective and past guests of the Nymphlight, as well as friends and loved ones of the current guests. Couples usually check in to the Nymphlight to play together on this one chance in life that they have, especially lovers of different ages who for a night can be, together, ten again, but some go singly, their partners taking a room in the Lost Domain to revel in the sight of their beloved in the shape of a playing child.
Is there, as is sometimes rumored, another hotel
Admission into the Grand Hotel Nymphlight is not easily obtained, not only because it is the most popular of all the grand hotels, booked up months, even years, in advance, but also because those seeking entry are required to provide a vast array of support materials to assist the engineering staff in all their recreative tasks, including photographs and films, drawings, clothing, games and toys, dolls, balls, uniforms, comic books, names and types of pets, and lists of everything from childhood sports and hobbies, favorite foods, books, and movies to happiest and saddest moments, secret childtime wishes, dreams. Merely to have kept or remembered all these things is enough to suggest that the prospective guest who supplies them is ideally suited for an overnight in the hotel. There are many, of course, who long for such an experience but who have few or no support materials to offer, and, though it is against hotel policy, they often borrow these things from others or buy new. They thereby relive a childhood they never knew—one probably more delightful than their own forgotten one, for delight is the principal aim of the hotel—whereupon their night in the Grand Hotel Nymphlight becomes in effect their “true memory” of childhood. As it ought, for to be without any other is a sad thing. All guests must leave behind some of the support materials they have brought—usually a toy plus an article or two of clothing—as partial payment for their stay, and these items become the property of the hotel management. Children who are children now are also admitted, and much more freely, partly to intensify the experience of the children from other times, but also simply because they are loved. For them, the room rates are exceptionally low, especially if unaccompanied by an adult, usually little more than a frock, a shirt, a hairband or bracelet, a toy. Thus, one cannot be sure if it is a real child one is playing with or an adult reliving her childhood, and this is part of the joy and wonder of it all.
If the playhouse dimensions make full-grown adults feel ill at ease, that was probably the original intention of the architect, though it was also necessary to create a structure that would fit comfortably and unobtrusively within the Hotel Lost Domain, which embraces it; not itself one of the grand hotels, being imitative (neo-Gothic in a depressed sort of way) and of little architectural significance, yet nearly as popular as the hotel which it contains, and especially with the elderly. The Hotel Lost Domain has but one compellingly attractive feature, which is the sole reason for its popularity: All its rooms peer in upon the Grand Hotel Nymphlight. From them, one can immerse oneself all day in the magical world of children—and all night, too, for what is more pleasurable than watching, unwatched, sleeping boys and girls, their dreams on view like ghostly videos? Some of the Lost Domain clientele are virtually permanent residents, but others include prospective and past guests of the Nymphlight, as well as friends and loved ones of the current guests. Couples usually check in to the Nymphlight to play together on this one chance in life that they have, especially lovers of different ages who for a night can be, together, ten again, but some go singly, their partners taking a room in the Lost Domain to revel in the sight of their beloved in the shape of a playing child.
Is there, as is sometimes rumored, another hotel
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