Just
another bad dream
Just as I
said I didn't get nightmares, I got one. That'll teach me to stay up late
writing horror stories. Among the many little scenes was a ride down in an
elevator. I made the mistake of pushing down button when I meant to go up.
I was dazed
for some reason, wandering around one of the upper floors of a thousand story
hospital when I saw a service elevator. Four of us stood in the thing as it descended
a pretty woman, an old man, a black man and me.
The floor
wobbled which made me nervous. It was nothing more than a piece of ply board
which started to crumble as the elevator went down. We sank slowly like aging
barge in a canal, floating passed old doors, some half open, other boarded
over, as if the elevator was not meant to be used.
My mind was
racing when we reached the 900th floor and then the edge of the ply board
snapped. I grabbed for the handholds protruding from the walls and watched the
floor continue to sink. I could imagine myself hanging there long after the
floor had vanished. I was afraid to look down again.
I let go and
fell, dropping through the sinking floor and through another ply board floor
ten feet below it. The other people in the elevator had abandoned me, and stood
at one of the half open doors high above.
"Help!"
I yelled as I fell. I screamed through some of the passing doors. But people in
them had their own problems. They didn't want to know about me. My freed
passengers were another matter, running furiously around upstairs trying to
find me help. But I fell and fell and fell...
...and woke
to my dismal apartment in