(A milling mass, like a dust-storm, or a London fog, in the
foyer. As Times Square or Grand
Central is quasi the cosmos in miniature, so might this little scene be a model, in miniature, of Times
Square.)
(A green delta lights up and dings; beneath that, the doors depart,
revealing a pristine lit parallelepiped, its interior for the moment
devoid of life -- like a bandbox, but obliging.
From out the foggy massing figures, two independently congeal, and enter that inviting space, which seemingly,
like the gate in "Vor dem Gesetz", has opened precisely for them: a
young woman, who has entered first, and a man, who enters after. Upright, they come to rest. Behind them, silently, the doors slide
shut.)
For a time -- brief as the clock ticks it, yet deep by the
mind -- no word is spoken, as either gaze ranges randomly, rather over
head-height, idly picking out and imagining spots in the featureless beige (was
it), flat plastic paneling, as though prepared to read any public signage there
might be; things like, “No
Parking”; “Non sporgersi”; or “Post No Bills”. In absence of any such, their gazes drifted, lightly,
noncommitally lower, as though by the mere action of impersonal gravity; until, by the mere chance of so
severely limited a geometry (had the two been but dots in a many-dimensional
Calabi-Yau manifold, their gazes need never have crossed), they alit, upon each
other.
“Mm-m.. Rather dreadful weather we’ve been having,” remarked
the gentleman, truthfully enough, anent what the meteorologists had described,
judiciously, as a “wintry mix”.
Yet said it, with a touch of emphasis only slimly supported by the
banality of the observation; so
that a percipient semiotician, had any been present (invisibly, in the air)
might have concluded that the manner here exceeded the matter in import.
And indeed, the young gentlewoman might well herself have
been versed in the semio-interpretive arts: for did not then, for an instant (no more), a touch of color
mantle her cheek? only to vanish,
quick as the flicker of flame.
“Ahh… Come here often?” he ventured, soldiering on, though
having received no explicit response to his first observation; illustrating the vague ‘here’ with a
faint and ineffectual gesturing towards the surrounding box, or possibly the containing
building, voire the town, voire life on Earth.
At this, the damsel did reply. “Only during this week of TDY; and today is my last day.”
Each now mum; each perhaps pondering this outwardly
nugatory, yet ineffably suggestive
exchange.
Thus a profound silence now filled each several corner of
the elevator, as it slowly, relentlessly, rose, towards, and finally beyond,
another floor. The only motion at
all was that of the elevator
itself: which, moving smoothly
uniformly through Euclidean space, in accordance with Galilean Relativity, was
not perceptible to the occupants in terms of applicable physics (and yet mayhap
they do sense something, beyond the laws of kinetics: as when the sleeper in the berth, on a night-train, somehow
in dreams tenses and senses when
the conveyance enters the yet deeper darkness of a tunnel far beneath the
Alps).
The third floor was reached; a light sprang on to that
effect; and both he and both she
at once held their breaths;
and kept holding them, as the contraption eased to a stop, and the doors
slid slowly open. Was their twosome
now to be adulterated? Yet no-one
got on; and the doors,
indifferent, slid shut again.
(Were this a murder-mystery, the burning question would now
be: What had happened to the
presumable person on the third floor, who had pressed the summoning
button? Sudden heart-attack? Kidnapped by a rival intel agency? Taken up bodily to the Hereafter, in
sudden Rapture? Or snatched
down to the Basement, by the Fiend? -- This not being a mystery story, we shall
never know.)
Relaxing now, she smiled and said: “False alarm.”
They both again fell silent, more comfortably -- we could
almost say, companionably -- this time,
as the vertical chariot, as though drawn towards the zenith by some
cosmic force, noiselessly effortlessly and ineluctably rose to yet another floor: and, this time unsummoned, breezed past
it.
[Impatient, my experienced and worldly readers chafe: What did he not say this, nor nodded she that? -- But you were not there; and the words we wished to say but never said, are like the
small souls of infants who perished at birth; and cannot be reclaimed, from their tiny unmarked graves.]
~
Again a lift, a lilt, as another floor is passed without
isssue or incident -- passed-by, like opportunities; passed over, like disinherited heirs. He means to speak, but his lips
are soundless. She leans as though
to gesture -- but stays her hand, sinking back like a river into its bed.
Meanwhile, unperceived, impassive, the world turns.
At last, the lift arrives at the last floor but one (the
last his own): the very floor she had selected, when
first presented with a panel of enticing choices…
The lit cage eases to a stop. The doors, as fatefully as the Red Sea, part -- yet almost
as though with a butlerish bow, to allow the lady to step off. With a hesitant step, she moves to
leave; half out, half-turns, and
forms a word -- but then says nothing.
And yet, for a moment, stands still amid the doorway, as he suddenly
hies his hand; and then, alarmed,
alight, cries out:
Ah,
lady! Companion
for
but a brief step up the rising path.
What
then of PEGASUS --
Pegasus, pining and pawing the ground?
What
of Pegasus, the white-winged,
gold-girt
steed ??
Whereon,
upon what fodder
can
he feed ????
Then over her shoulder, not unkindly, yet ever more faintly
as she withdraws and disappears:
Upon
grass, sir;
Upon
God’s green grass.
The doors close for the final time upon their remembered co-presence; and the lift resumes for the home-stretch, with a shudder and something of a sigh. And never again in this life, did those
two ever meet.
[And at that, the Recording Angel writes finis to the page, and turns another leaf.]
