By Brennan Berryhill

The gold was dizzying. It spun in his eyes like spirals, sparkling in the mirror caging them in from above. Unreality made real. He looked up and saw himself like he was down. People pressed him from all sides, brushed him with briefcases, crossed him with sleeve cuffs. 20 became 19 became 18.

Ding. 

Faces drifted off the elevator, removing the haunt of their ghostly murmurs. The down arrow remained lit with 24-karat assurance. Ornate-patterned doors rattled close again. Subtle conversation permeated the elevator car like cigarette smoke. Down they shook. 18 became 17 became 15. At 14 another contingent left them, like layers of boosters detaching from a rocket as it went further into the abyss. He would outlast them all. He was waiting for the bottom floor.

There was no more packing like penguins. The crowd was dispersing with each floor. They no longer braced him. He became mortally aware of his own verticality. Somebody said it was raining outside, as if that mattered to them, here in their metal box being shoveled under floor 13, 12, 11. Ding, Ding, ding. The faint of heart got off on higher floors; they weren’t fit for the whole journey. Only a remnant remained. The few of them glanced at each other for assurance. Some weren’t assured and got off at floor 9. Some lost their stomach later and left at floor 7. 

Only 2 left – he and another. She was his constant. His true companion. She stuck with him through the perils of floor 6, the pains of 5, the trials of 4. He thought they would make it to the end together, but at floor 3 she exited without hesitation. As she walked off, she turned and smiled at him briefly, as if they knew each other, as if they had gone through anything other than standing on an elevator, as if they would ever see each other again. Then she was gone, door closed, elevator lurching down. He was deathly alone. 

Ding. Floor 2. It opened, even though he hadn’t pressed the button. There was a porter outside. He wore a red vest, red pants, and a gold-laced cap. The porter was staring at him, not making a move to get on the elevator, seeming to will the question into his soul: are you going to the bottom floor? Yes, he wanted to answer, yes I’m going to the bottom floor. But then a knowledge shook him rigid. It tingled ice into every nerve-ending. It paralyzed him with profundity. 

There was no bottom floor. 

He needed to get off. He tried to take a step, but the porter didn’t budge. Panic fomented in his gut, but he heard himself saying to the porter, “I heard it’s raining outside.”

The man nodded. “Beautiful autumn day.”

Without knowing why, his mind became poetry, and he said, “Nothing gold can stay.” 

The doors started to close. The porter kept staring. He tried to push back the doors with his arms, but they didn’t stop, and he had to pull his hand out before it was crushed by the machine. With the smoosh of metal on metal, he was trapped. 

The down arrow remained lit. The elevator started descending. Everything was terribly normal. Maybe his premonition was wrong and he would simply get off at the bottom floor. He looked at the lit up “2” on the display and saw with relief that it disappeared. 

Except nothing ever replaced it. 

The elevator picked up speed. The down arrow remained lit. The carriage rocked and rattled. He looked up at the mirror overhead and saw himself smiling back. He wasn’t smiling. The elevator shook harder. The spirals swirled quicker. His stomach swam. It felt like they were in freefall. No number ever lit up the board again. He was going down faster and faster. 

But there was no bottom floor. There was no bottom floor. 

Brennan Berryhill is a junior studying English.