THE CONVENTIONEER: A 100-WORD STORY

Phil trudged down the dingy Motel 6 hallway, scanning the doors for his room. Ah, there: 202.

He always reserved Room 202 whenever he could. The desk clerks understood. Fucking sympathy, Phil thought. They knew, and Phil knew that they knew, that he had seen better days.

Once he had been a celebrity, regularly seen on national TV hobnobbing with a phalanx of top-hatted gentlemen. But climate change and a string of bad predictions killed that. Now it was DragonCon. Bullshit.

Pulling a tattered copy of The Book of Marmot from the nightstand, Punxsutawney Phil settled in for the night.