to the fifth floor
As a Creative Writing major, even the most mundane events can create a decent story. Just another flash fiction story I put to the page after watching people get off the bus from the fifth floor.
tw: s*x, drug usage
Had someone taught you when you were younger that you should take care of yourself in the same way you take care of others, then maybe you wouldn’t have ever found yourself in this position.
Fifth floor. South tower. First door on the right.
You only needed the instructions once before you committed the route to the elevator to your memory.
Text when you’re outside.
You will once you get up there.
It only takes twenty seconds to get to the fifth floor. That’s four seconds between floors one and two and three and four—all the way to the top. That’s twenty seconds to compromise with yourself, to bargain and belittle all the boundaries that you’ve set—assuming that you’ve set them.
The elevator door will slide open and you’ll realize you are stuck in the middle. The sky unfolds endlessly in front of you like a royal carpet, clouds adorning the walkway to somewhere far. Below you, people are getting off the bus and getting home.
The view is a painful reminder that you are at a standstill, halfway between the two realms. Alone, uncertain, anxious.
It takes ten more seconds to reach the door. That’s ten steps to change your mind, turn around, and get back into the elevator. Are you surprised that you don’t?
There’s something familiar about a routine like this. There is something familiar and intoxicating about the numbness and the disappointment, but it makes this easy.
It’s easy to stop at the first door on the right and let him know that you are outside. The door opens a quarter of the way and he lets go of it. That is your sign to grab it before it shuts again.
You follow him through the living room, ignoring the other person on the couch whose eyes are supposed to be watching the television in front of him but instead are burning questions into your retreating back. You’re in the room now.
He’s standing by the door. His face hasn’t changed at all, but you step forward quickly anyways, making a beeline for the foot of the bed. You wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.
Then, he’s talking. He’s asking you about that one class with the project coming up, and what time you’ll have to wake up tomorrow. He’s wondering what you’re going to eat for dinner and if your housemates are doing fine. He’s telling you to hurry up and undress.
So, you do. The familiarity of the routine makes it easy.
You slip your shirt off as he lights a blunt and it hits the floor by the time he’s exhaled the smoke between the two of you.
It’s another inhale before you’re completely naked. He passes it to you, and suddenly, the smoke is attacking your lungs and he’s attacking the rest of you.
The routine, the ease of it, the familiarity—whatever you call it—makes it so easy to lay in this bed that you can only occupy when he says so. It makes it easy to press your foreheads together and breathe one another in. His lips never touch yours, but they are so close to your own that there isn’t a whisper from him that would escape you.
And then it’s done.
You’re on the bed, naked, split apart and messy. He’s relighting the blunt. You ask yourself if those scientists that wrote the theories of matter and time knew what they were talking about. How could space exist so quickly between two bodies, almost as if there was no time spent at all?
He’s looking at you again. You’ve since slid yourself under the blanket he’d shoved in the crack between the wall and the mattress.
He’s talking, too. Grad school, and if you applied. Your cats back home, and what they’re doing right now. Your shirt is on the floor, and he’s handing it to you. Your family, and whether or not your brother is taller than him, even though there’s no timeline in existence in which you and the man sitting three feet away ever make it out of these four walls.
This is part of the routine, too. The part where it actually means nothing at all—when your shirt is already on and you’re in the process of pulling up your pants and he’s suddenly run out of things to say.
You have one second to look around and make sure you didn’t forget anything, but even if you did, it wasn’t like it was lost forever.
So long as you were available, you would always be allowed to occupy this bed sometimes. So long as you cared more about the feeling of providing for someone else rather than yourself, you would always allow yourself to occupy this bed. Every time.
Then your foot is in the hallway, and the wind has picked up because an hour has passed and the sun has gone down. He opens the door wider for you to leave.
You don’t say goodbye. That is the only reservation you have here. You walk for ten seconds back to the elevator and press the button.
The door slides open, and you’re counting once again.
It only takes twenty seconds to get down from the fifth floor. That’s four seconds between floors four and three and two and one—all the way to the bottom. That’s twenty seconds to think about reality—clothes on the ground and a body in the sheets with a boy between your legs.
The elevator door slides open and you will realize. The sky unfolds above you into a mosaic of dark blues and purples. It is a welcome reminder that no matter how many times you think and rethink this routine, that is all it is. There are no words to read between the lines, and no emotions hiding in dark places that refuse to be revealed.
Had someone taught you, when you were younger, that you should take care of yourself in the same way you take care of others, then maybe you wouldn’t have ever found yourself in this position.
