Entry Number
DM7cZ1406
“Suicide bomb, that!”
Says the guy playing
the elevator music
on his cellphone (for
everyone in the ele-
vator to enjoy. “This
can’t be helped,” he
says into the phone
for whatever reason.
(Everyone else thought
surely he was going
to terminate that
hogwash with “can’t
be happening, but it
seems these thoughts
were similarly spare
of any real foreboding.
Not being a movie,
this sort of string of
incidents do not
lead to tragedy.
These things just
do not occur in real
life. Nevertheless,
the pregnant woman
began to moan. The
elevator inhabitants
were on their way
up. The moans were
barely a blip in anyone's
mind. And they were
silent enough that it
did not seem disturbing
that no on was paying
attention. Visibly, any-
way. But each person
in the shaft did believe
they caught an audible
“birth” and “fuck” . . . .
Ah, mumbling. This is
most definitely not
what the occupants
of elevator number
five were thinking,
but how could they
not know, given the
cast they encountered
in the miniature fleet-
ing home in which,
come to think of it,
we all spend an awful
lot of time as its
occupants are zipped
away to another home
(whether zipping down
or up, as it turns out;
to one that's a bit less
miniature and a bit
less fleeting.
Ah, home.
Back to our story.
With, I'll admit, an
intended level of
suspense, since I
do know what hap-
pens next, even
fifty-one years
ence (as I type
this). How could
I possibly forget.
Who could? I
exited the elev-
ator and sort of
swaggered to my
desk at my less
fleeting home,
after noticing
that everyone
else in the el-
evator had the
most unusual
sunburn. “These
people are so
not careful,” I
remember think-
ing as I swaggered
to toward the coffee
machine. Pay no
heed to that. It’s
simply my job to
think. Because
I’m the agent,
after all. So,
at that lost in
thought moment
of swagger and
impending coffee,
whether it was a
bomb or not, I
instinctively re-
moved my phone
from its holster
(these things have
been trending for
weeks now; trust me,
just look it up!) and
I sent one quick text:
“you still mean the
world to me, nick!”
I hit send and quite
fortunately made it
well toward the out-
skirts of the floor
forty-two before
the massive explosion
on floor fifty-one.
