A moment I won't forget.

A gryphon peeked around the corner into the lobby. It was Tuesday morning. It was quiet.



The bar, filled with furs, chatting and greeting each other when he'd first walked in the door on Thursday night was now empty. The classy lounging area by the fire with the expensive couches that had seemed to be a home to the same group of jokesters all weekend as they laid around lazily and laughed and shared pictures and stories -- empty. The restaurant area, always packed with furs eating and complaining about the service, checking their schedules and discussing the most recent event they'd attended was vacant now. There was no one left. The convention was over.



There was virtually no sign of the more than twelve hundred furs who had made this hotel their home over the weekend. The hotel staff had done their job. Perhaps even a little too well. It was almost as if the con had never happened at all. The smell of alcohol and activity had been scraped away by Pine Sol and new floor wax. The sounds of excitement had been replaced by the soft recreation of a one hundred and twenty six piece classical orchestra through three inch speakers hidden somewhere in the ceiling. The grand lobby was sparkling clean. Sterile. Quiet. Like a million other hotels.



The gryphon frowned. Perhaps there was just one other fur left -- just one -- wandering somewhere in the empty hotel. With a hopeful heart, he decided to make one more round through the convention area -- a route he'd taken more times than he could count over the weekend as he met and talked with people.



He walked through the lobby, looking for whatever scraps of evidence he could find to prove that the memories he'd had of the weekend had actually happened. There was nothing. No misplaced pocket schedules. No leftover sketches on bits of napkins. No glitter or colorful ribbons on the floor. Even the ashtrays had been purged of any cigarette butt that had had contact with a fur's lips. His footfall echoed through the cavernous, marble room alone.



The gryphon entered the pool area. He remembered this place. This was where the group of eastern furs sat in the long, white beach chairs and talked about music and politics while watching the others swim in the pool with the inflatable orca one of them had won at the auction. And the balcony above... The place where a group of enthusiastic furs called down mock harassments and jokes at those who were below. They, like the swimmers and the eastern furs, were gone. The water in the pool hadn't a single ripple. The chairs each had a complimentary hotel towel folded on it and waiting for its next guest. The orca was gone.



He peeked into the elevator area, where furs had come and gone like a switching station all weekend. But the people there now were few and unfamiliar. They didn't have ears or tails. No badges. They were strangers.



His heart sank as he padded into the final, dark hallway. They were all gone. The area that had been arranged for artists to sit and draw had been cleaned up. The tables removed.



The gryphon sighed. He felt lonely now.



But suddenly he caught a hint of something familiar. A smell. The smell of bodies packed into a room. A smell he'd recognized from many various shows and events over the weekend. He followed the sense to an open door and to his surprise, found a room that the hotel staff had not yet cleaned the essence out of.



He entered the room and instantly recognized it, even there was only a single, dim light casting a gloomy glow over a lonely stage at the front of the long, empty space. It was his stage. The stage he'd performed on for the furs on Friday night. Slowly, he approached the stage and stood in front of it. Then, reached out and touched it. A section of it creaked. He hadn't noticed that before. He was probably too excited in doing his performance. He could almost hear the crowd in the room, still shouting and laughing. The chairs had all been stacked and placed in the corner. The lights were out. But he could still feel their energy within the room.



They were all gone now. Back to their homes, scattered all over the world. And along with them had taken their stories and their drawings and their laughter and inflatable orcas. But as he turned and sat on the stage under the light, he could still feel their presence in the room. And he realized that among the things they'd taken with them when they left, he'd been able to give them one more.



The gryphon smiled slightly, looking out into a phantom audience.



"I made them laugh."



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