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Authors: Whitehead Colson
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generally being morning people. She wondered if the administration had extended the library’s hours during exam period; Lila Mae had discovered she was often ignorant of much routine information her fellow students possessed. But the lower floors of Fulton Hall were dark. She decided the light had been left on accidentally and returned to the arid court transcripts of
The United States vs. The Arbo Elevator Company
.
Spring arrived, and a new semester. The work was more difficult than before—she’d discovered Volume One of
Theoretical Elevators
and was having trouble sleeping. One day in February she saw the light again in Fulton Hall. The light wasn’t on every night, there was no set schedule she could define, but it was ontoo frequently for it to be accidental. She couldn’t help but notice. Fulton Hall had formerly been the spa’s pep center, a wide stone building in the center of campus. Walkways of pink tile radiated from the structure to all the important buildings for the treatment of psychosomatic maladies. Mud Therapy, Colonic Irrigation, Bleeding Chambers. Now the buildings housed Engineering, Advanced Concepts, the Hall of Safety. A pink path also led to the gym, which had also been a gym during the time of the spa, and filled with medicine balls. The path led, more or less, directly from the lit window in Fulton Hall to the janitor’s closet where Lila Mae lived.
Occasionally she would see a figure moving through the stacks. She decided it was an old man: He walked with a cane. Sometimes instead of turning on the lights, he used a lantern, and he walked even more slowly then, as if inordinately afraid of dropping it. She saw him about a dozen times in all, and always felt as if they were the last people on earth. It was the same feeling she gets when she’s in a shaft, standing on the car. There’s an old inspector’s maxim: “An elevator is a grave.” Such loss and devastation in there. That’s why the inside walls of the car are never sheer: they’re broken up into panels, equipped with a dorsal rail. Otherwise it would be a box. A coffin. On the nights the figure haunted Fulton Hall, he was Lila Mae’s elevator. The thing she stood upon in the darkness of the shaft, just him, just her, and the darkness. In the elevator well, slits of light seep from the door seams on each floor at regular intervals, and do not comfort. The slits of light speak of more light that is out of reach: There will be no redemption.
If she had known the identity of the man on the last night she saw him, would it have changed her response? On that last night he saw her and waved at her, slowly, communicating all he knew and what she already understood about the darkness. Would it have changed her response to his wave (nothing, not even a nod, the polite thing to do) if she had known the man was James Fultonand that the following morning a hungover janitor would discover his body on the library floor, dead of a stroke, the lantern wick still glowing dully? Probably not. That’s the kind of person Lila Mae is.
* * *
Anyway, slept. In the biggest bed she has ever slept in, swimmable, Lila Mae buoyant despite her negligible body fat (a skinny one, she is). The bed possesses an undertow conducive to dreaming, but she doesn’t remember her dreams when she wakes. On waking, her half-dreaming consciousness segues into a recollection of her visit to the Fanny Briggs building. It was simple: that’s what Lila Mae is thinking about in her room at 117 Second Avenue.
The lobby of the Fanny Briggs Memorial Building was almost finished when she arrived. As if to distract from the minuscule and cramped philosophy of what would transpire on the floors above, the city offered visitors the spacial bounty of the lobby. The ersatz marble was firm underfoot like real marble, sheer, and produced trembling echoes effortlessly. The circle of Doric columns braced the weight above without complaint. The mural, however, was not complete.
The United States vs. The Arbo Elevator Company
.
Spring arrived, and a new semester. The work was more difficult than before—she’d discovered Volume One of
Theoretical Elevators
and was having trouble sleeping. One day in February she saw the light again in Fulton Hall. The light wasn’t on every night, there was no set schedule she could define, but it was ontoo frequently for it to be accidental. She couldn’t help but notice. Fulton Hall had formerly been the spa’s pep center, a wide stone building in the center of campus. Walkways of pink tile radiated from the structure to all the important buildings for the treatment of psychosomatic maladies. Mud Therapy, Colonic Irrigation, Bleeding Chambers. Now the buildings housed Engineering, Advanced Concepts, the Hall of Safety. A pink path also led to the gym, which had also been a gym during the time of the spa, and filled with medicine balls. The path led, more or less, directly from the lit window in Fulton Hall to the janitor’s closet where Lila Mae lived.
Occasionally she would see a figure moving through the stacks. She decided it was an old man: He walked with a cane. Sometimes instead of turning on the lights, he used a lantern, and he walked even more slowly then, as if inordinately afraid of dropping it. She saw him about a dozen times in all, and always felt as if they were the last people on earth. It was the same feeling she gets when she’s in a shaft, standing on the car. There’s an old inspector’s maxim: “An elevator is a grave.” Such loss and devastation in there. That’s why the inside walls of the car are never sheer: they’re broken up into panels, equipped with a dorsal rail. Otherwise it would be a box. A coffin. On the nights the figure haunted Fulton Hall, he was Lila Mae’s elevator. The thing she stood upon in the darkness of the shaft, just him, just her, and the darkness. In the elevator well, slits of light seep from the door seams on each floor at regular intervals, and do not comfort. The slits of light speak of more light that is out of reach: There will be no redemption.
If she had known the identity of the man on the last night she saw him, would it have changed her response? On that last night he saw her and waved at her, slowly, communicating all he knew and what she already understood about the darkness. Would it have changed her response to his wave (nothing, not even a nod, the polite thing to do) if she had known the man was James Fultonand that the following morning a hungover janitor would discover his body on the library floor, dead of a stroke, the lantern wick still glowing dully? Probably not. That’s the kind of person Lila Mae is.
* * *
Anyway, slept. In the biggest bed she has ever slept in, swimmable, Lila Mae buoyant despite her negligible body fat (a skinny one, she is). The bed possesses an undertow conducive to dreaming, but she doesn’t remember her dreams when she wakes. On waking, her half-dreaming consciousness segues into a recollection of her visit to the Fanny Briggs building. It was simple: that’s what Lila Mae is thinking about in her room at 117 Second Avenue.
The lobby of the Fanny Briggs Memorial Building was almost finished when she arrived. As if to distract from the minuscule and cramped philosophy of what would transpire on the floors above, the city offered visitors the spacial bounty of the lobby. The ersatz marble was firm underfoot like real marble, sheer, and produced trembling echoes effortlessly. The circle of Doric columns braced the weight above without complaint. The mural, however, was not complete.
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