The heavy doors groaned open and he stepped inside. His loafers scratched on the floor, picking up dust. He struggled to concentrate, on what he was doing; his mind was everywhere and nowhere at once. The elevator only made it harder.

Are these walls mauve or magenta? Why is there really no thirteenth floor? Did I pick up my dry cleaning?

There was a shard of glass ringing in his ears and from the moment he woke up he tasted blueberries. His foot itched. He removed his shoe and sat on the tile. The tail of his shirt folded under him. The tile was cold and unforgiving. It judged him on his coldness and found him wanting. He wished it were a bit softer. He had no fingernails to scratch with so he took out his money clip. There were no bills to get in the way and he started digging at his foot. The tickling itch went away shortly. It was only on the right foot anyways. The left one never itched. He replaced the money clip into his pocket and blinked. It was a long blink, to clear the cobwebs.

The elevator was quiet like a cotton ball on dry skin. Annoying, unnerving, but quiet. He yearned for sound, for music. He yearned for something to drown the ringing in his ears. He wished for company, someone to eat oatmeal beside him. Slurping and sloshing soggy oats around in their mouth. Perhaps with blueberries.

He’d often get that tingling in his head, when people ate beside him. That strange chilling prick on the back of the brain. Like an ice pick. He liked this feeling, it made him aware. It enlightened his senses, he could smell the ice pick, sometimes taste it. Cold and dull, prodding at his gray. It was a strange sense, one that not many (he believed) others could experience.

He stood up and faced the panel of buttons. One through twenty-six, plus B1 and B2. He shuffled over to within arms length, and pressed twenty-six.

The button clicked and he pulled back his hand as though it electrified him. The wall behind caught him stumbling backward away from the glowing number. Yellow lights shot through his face from the ceiling and the walls. He crumpled under the sudden force of the elevator rising. Technology had its ways of scaring him. He huddled in the corner like a crushed can. Sweat beaded on his forehead and palms and he crossed his legs as he sat. The satiny slack of his coat was smooth along his legs.

It’s going to happen soon, you’re already on your way. There’s no turning back now.

After a few seconds of nervous rocking he regained his composure and stood to face the back wall of the elevator. The ceiling lights brought out the purple of the paint. There were no chips or scratches, no dents, no dark spots. He saw himself in the mirrored metal doors, a black smear, a bug on the windshield, a blemish. He began a frantic search to find some imperfection.

It’s just not natural.

Jutting out from the walls inside the elevator was a large gold railing. He looked this over carefully. No fingerprints, no lipstick, no smudges, no smears. The yellow shimmered like sunlight sending flecks of gold darting about the lift.

He covered his eyes, protecting them from the perfection around him.

Check the floor.

He decided to check the floor. Ahah! Dirt. Sprinkled over the tiles were small bits of dirt. He nearly jumped up with excitement at the find. Until he realized that the dirt came from him. His boots. The dirty floor was a result of his imperfection, and no one else. His heart slumped back down into his deep stomach. He gulped a mouth of saliva in an attempt to digest it.

What’s wrong? A dose of reality scares you?

“Shut up.” He mumbled

He rolled to his side, assuming the fetal position on the dirty floor of the elevator. Smacking his lips he tasted blueberries again. The floor light clicked from “12” to “14”

With his free hand he reached into his left pocket and found a bottle. It was translucent and brownish, sort of a clear taupe. He popped the childproof top off with his thumb and shook the contents. Satisfied with the sound he tipped the bottle to his lips and swallowed a few tablets. He blinked hard.

It wasn’t the drugs that woke him a few minutes later. The elevator gave a little jolt, like a mother nudging her baby awake from a nap.

Wake up darling. Time for your bottle.

He forced his eyelids apart and tried to focus above the door. The numbers were blurry and seemed a mile away.

“Fourteen?” He asked himself.

The elevator was stuck on the fourteenth floor. He smelled smoke.

Can you smell that Charlie? Something’s burning.

“I don’t smell it.” He lied “You can’t smell.”

I smell smoke Charlie.

“You’ve no nose, I’ve seen it.”

He staggered up to his feet. A few bits of dirt stuck to his arm from where he had been laying. He brushed himself off. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

This is not a dream.

“Yeah yeah.”

He hobbled to the emergency stop button. After a moment of contemplating he realized that stopping wasn’t the problem. He picked up the emergency phone and listened for an answer. It hummed into his ear but no one spoke on the other end. Just humming. Hmmmmmmm. Click. He dropped it back onto its stoop.

Immediately he regretted hanging up, he yearned for the sound. He tried to imitate it with his own sounds. Grrrrrrrr. No. Ermmmm. No.

Hmmmm.

“Yes that’s it. Keep doing it.”

Hmmmm…

He looked around the elevator for a way to get it moving again, careful to not lose the sound of the humming. The ceiling had no escape hatch and neither did the floor. The light for the twenty-sixth floor was still blinking. He pressed it. Gravity took over and threw him back onto the floor. The elevator was moving again.

Inside and outside, the elevator was moving. The walls began to smooth and blend into themselves. They bubbled and popped, spurting mauve paint onto his face. He winced at its coldness and tried to hide his eyes. He tucked his head into his trench coat, holding it over his face like the phantom of the opera. When he felt that he was properly protected from the walls, he opened his eyes to look into the darkness. When he did this, another face looked back at him. It was white and had no nose. Behind the white masked face two enormous eyes sunk like icebergs. Ten percent above, ninety percent below.

Boo! Ahahaha!

He jumped a little inside, but didn’t actually move. He slammed his eyes shut and tried to think it away.

“Leave me alone!”

The walls kept melting around him, the paint shifted from mauve, to orange, to black and back. But he couldn’t see it. He stayed inside his jacket, inside his head. The force of the elevator strengthened. He couldn’t hold up his head anymore. It pulled him under. The cold paint sloshed onto him in buckets. It sounded like an ocean. Trumpets blared inside his ears and his mouth was full of blueberries. He started to choke on a seed. He grasped at his throat, throwing off his jacket; he opened his eyes.

The face remained.

“Why are you still here?” He managed, making a choice between gasping for breath or asking the same question he’d been asking since morning.

Do you want to go home now?

“No…what home?”

The face had long, narrow horns, which curved up and back from its scowling, shrunken forehead. It reared its head back and shook away some ancient dirt onto the floor. Some strange sound emitted from its eye sockets, like chanting monks. Ohmmm.

“What HOME?”

He grabbed for the thing, for its horns. He missed.

“Go away!”

He cupped his hands over his ears, simply wanting the sounds to stop. Had he been any stronger, he would have crushed his own head. The pressing gave him an instant headache. The walls of the elevator began to calm, the bubbling stopped. The white-faced thing just stood there. It looked past him.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?”

Are you a guilty man Charlie?

He lunged again; this time grabbing what seemed to be its neck. He flailed and shook, trying to strangle his fears, but the thing wouldn’t budge.

“Don’t call me that!”

He squeezed harder, pushing all the blood from his fingertips until they were mere ghosts floating at the end of his hands.

He’d grabbed the railing by mistake. Looking quickly around the elevator there was nothing else there. Just he and the railing and the buttons. Twenty-sixth floor.

Go on, check it out.

The twenty-sixth floor was the roof. When the doors opened a breeze pushed him back against the wall. He fought forward. The cold made him shake. He reached into his pocket. There was no bottle.

“Where is it?”

Go over to the ledge Charlie. It’s safe.

“But I need my pills, I can’t control it without…”

He walked towards the ledge like a zombie crawling for brains. His coattail tossed in the wind, it threatened to catch and drag him off the building. The gray sky floated just a few feet above him; he could feel its neutrality scorning him. “Normalness.” He mumbled to himself.

“Got to fit in, got to be normal, fit in, be normal, fit in…”

They’ll find you eventually.

“Shut up!”

Find yourself first Charlie, before they find you.

He shuffled to the end of the roof. His heels held him up, while his toes looked down at

the street. He got that tingle in the back of his brain, like someone was chewing on it.

Check it out.

He looked down; there was a brown bottle on the sidewalk. All alone, the lid was off.

“I’m outside, I don’t need them anymore. I’m outside.”

They know that you killed her.

The words shocked him off the ledge. He began to fall. He wondered immediately how long it would take, fifteen seconds, maybe twenty.

His thoughts shot around like a pinball. One and one and one is three. Boysenberry, no blueberry, yo man this shit will make you trip on blueberry. Twenty bucks. Hey baby, wanna take a walk? Twenty bucks. Charlie is that you? It’s three in the morning. Whose lipstick is this?

Bang.

This is the best shovel we got in stock. Twenty Bucks.

The wind in his face was refreshing. It washed his brain of the blackest thoughts. He was cleansed.

You did it Charlie, I’m so proud of you.