The elevator

The biggest question we have is why. The best answer so far is because. My wife and I blame everything on the Martians when I visit her, it seems a noncontroversial way of dealing with the why's. We both know it's a flippant way of dealing with our emotions. Words won't come out to express her real feelings about most anything, and words I might use to express my feelings always end up in a quickly changed subject. So we resort to the Martians, an allegory for the unspeakable.

She rides the elevator sometimes, my wife. She sneaks on when “the workers” aren't watching. They know where she is actually, and let her have her fun till it stops on her floor and they pull her out to save her from the perdition of forever roaming the universe in a limbo. She always tells me she'll never do that again. Runs into strangers who are always asking “Who are you,” or “Where are you going” and she must always answer with a shrug “I don't know.” That elevator is the highway to everywhere though, China if you ride far enough down and heaven if you ride it up to it's heights. Those buttons inside have a secret code to all these places and only the very wise know how to push them right. She knows I know the secret code to the bridge that I live under, like a troll, jumping out and scaring people. The Martians make me do it.

That elevator is the portal of life on this nursing home floor. Everyone has come here on it, everyone will leave on it. Furniture, beds, sheets and blankets come on it. Steaming hot meals come on it, from who knows where. That elevator can be stopped on this universe by pushing the buttons. It's a gathering place for restless souls, by the doors, where they gather to push the buttons to peek in and catch fleeting glimpses of strangers and interesting miscellanea headed off to different universes. Sometimes it stops on it's own and a familiar face will emerge from the limbo to be greeted enthusiastically with warm welcomes.

It is the Martians of course who control everything. Those buttons are the armament against their trickery. Apparently Martians are too short to reach them so their omnipotent presence can be somewhat subdued by lighting up the little arrows pointing either up or down. They make a lot of noise, those Martians, when the elevators are in limbo. Clanging and singing away they labour ceaselessly bringing wondrous cargoes to worlds far removed from the reality of this universe.

So off we are today, out from under our bridge. Was a windy damp night it was. We'll push the buttons here, and when the doors open we'll step into limbo, we know the secret code to our wife's universe. On the way there we'll peek into different universes as the doors open and close. None of them knows “why” either. They all exist just “because,” peeking into the limbo as the Martians sail it by.