Floating Hotel

by Grace Curtis

There is a level of wealth above wealth, a level of luxury that surpasses the common idea of luxury, which is all about holograms and loudspeakers and moving images, gilded statues and subservient bots. There is an idea that rises beyond those ideas. It is called “class.”

Class, the story goes, cannot be purchased. This is not strictly true. Money is an integral piece of the puzzle. The difference is that, in the case of class, money is a means to an end. It is not the end itself.

Work was an endless administrative treadmill that seemed to run faster every year,

“I reckon there’s a lot more to love than romance. Sometimes love can be making a bed, you know. Fixing a drink.”

SHOOT FOR THE MOON! EVEN IF YOU MISS, YOU’LL LAND AMONG THE STARS, illustrated with a crude illustration of dewy-eyed kittens leaving orbit in a cardboard spaceship. It was a very old proverb, one that Carl was fond of, but today the sight of it gave him a surge of irritation. Land among the stars? What did that even mean? Spin out forever in a graveyard of dying suns? What a terrifyingly high price to pay for something as innocent as a failed moon-hop.