Three Black Books

Your eyes ease into focus and suddenly you find yourself in an elevator. Your mind is blank, swiped of all thought and memory, you don’t know how you got here and you don’t know who you are. Your mind is raw and your senses receptive to the most intricate detail, as if nerve endings enveloped everything around you, you stand there rooted in the same place looking at the elevator door woven in steel cables and spirals of oxidized brass forming the shapes of birds of prey. You feel a jolt ripple through your body while simultaneously the resounding echo of the elevator’s shuffling mechanics beats your head as it begins to move. You can feel the acceleration forcing your back to press its weight on your knees but in contradiction you also feel your stomach lifting in free fall as if you were descending. In its movement, an obscure radiance absorbs you from behind and you can see your shadow facing the massive vulture in the tall elevator door. It is bright inside and every side is made up of glass panels exuding white light, as if this glass cage were being suspended in a thick cloud on a sunny day—it is quiet. You look at the elevator panel and observe three depressed buttons, but they seem to be moving, as if the panel were on a conveyor belt, like an escalator, sliding down and into the floor and coming back from out of the ceiling—your heart rapidly pulsates from this oceanic feeling. Suddenly a soft muffled ring, your feet grasp its normal heaviness against the floor and the door opens. Someone comes in but you cannot make out their face, only long dark hair, and their bare arms. Traveling down the arms with your eyes you see hands clasped around a black book wrapped in a beaded lace with a cross—another muffled ring. The door opens and another empty face enters and she shuffles aside and makes room for the second person. He is covered in blood and nothing else is distinguishable except for the black book dribbling red liquid from between the pages in his hand. You look down and in your hand is another black book, the doors open and the final depressed button reverts back into place.