Faye's Nightmare
Faye Miller opened the large ornate wooden door. A high-ceiling room with two oak desks on either side swam before her eyes and parting the room in the middle was a catwalk of rugs. The dim lights and twinkling of metal and jewels reminded her of a seance. She brushed these thoughts aside and meandered towards her host, thinking of how to extract the next bit of information necessary for her project.
Faye decided to be direct. “If you were to describe what colors you want, which would you choose?” The inquisitive designer pulled out a palm-sized notebook and nondescript pen, wrote the word Sight with a hasty underline.
The lithe man sitting in the vaulted leather chair unsteepled his fingers, folded his hands together over crossed knees, and rotated slightly with a thoughtful look on his angular face. He spoke slowly “I suppose I would say yellow. Yellow and red.”
Those colors stimulate desire, the designer thought to herself. “Alright,” she started, thankful to finally get the man talking “And if you were to describe it as a smell,” she lingered on that word, “what would you say?”
An equally trim assistant with perfect posture, perfectly straight and manicured blonde hair, and cold blue eyes passed by and said without turning her head “Incense,” and then added “Marble, large ferns, rich plush carpets,” as if the designer were supposed to make heads or tails of her variegated response. The designer scribbled furiously.
The room felt like it had darkened, but the designer took little notice. Now it was her turn to be thoughtful. After a brief moment, she snapped out of her reverie and put on her professional, client-recommendation voice. “What we’re going for here is an Organizing Principle.” She paused to allow her client to register the jargon. “What is the core thing that you want your casino to represent, the idea that gets down to it’s very bones?”
The spindly man immediately leaned forward. “Desire.” The word caused an involuntary shiver to travel down her spine. “And hunger. I want everything we do, from the tiniest detail of the pattern to the size and scope of our building to awaken hunger and desire in every person that walks through that door.”
In that moment it all became clear to Faye. Not so much an image as a feeling. They were building an altar of sacrifice to their own gilded god. An enterprise with one lurid end — to trap and ensnare the greedy and guiltless alike. And they had hired her to bring their dream — no, their nightmare — to life. Her host’s smile grew wider and his eyes flickered as a strange incantation filled her mind. Faye felt woozy. Then black bled into the edges of her vision and grew until it subdued her consciousness.
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