Chapter Text
There is a hallway and he is in it.
The hallway has metal floors. The metal floors are a grid. His feet are on the grid and the grid is cold. He does not have shoes. He does not think about why he does not have shoes. He is in a hallway with metal floors and no shoes and these are the parameters and the parameters do not require explanation.
He is running.
He is running at a speed that is not the speed he is running at. His legs are doing the running but the hallway is not doing the shortening. The hallway stays the same length. He stays the same distance from the end. The effort goes in. The distance does not come out. There is a word for this but the word is in a room he already passed and the room is behind him and behind him is where the sound is.
The sound is behind him.
The sound is: something sharp pulled slowly across something hard. Not fast. Not in a hurry. The sound is the sound of a thing that knows where it is going and does not need to rush because where it is going is where he is and where he is is not changing because the hallway is not doing the shortening.
The things behind him are pink.
He does not look. He knows they are pink the way you know a thing in a place like this — the knowing is in the air, in the color on the walls, in the reflection on the metal grid. The pink is wrong for a hallway with metal floors. The pink is the color of a thing that is supposed to be somewhere else — a garden, a zoo, a picture in a children's book. The pink is not supposed to be here. The pink does not care what it is supposed to be.
The pink has hooks.
He knows this too without looking. The hooks are what make the sound. The hooks drag on the walls. The hooks are patient. The hooks have been patient before he was here. The hooks will be patient after he is gone.
There is a door at the end of the hallway.
The door is the thing he is running toward. The door is important. He does not know why the door is important. He knows it the way you know that falling is bad and breathing is good — below the thinking, in the part of the body that does not ask questions. The door is important. He runs toward the door. The door does not get closer.
The hallway is different now.
He did not see the hallway change. The hallway was metal and now the hallway is tile. The tile is the tile of a place he has been before — a terminal, a waiting area, a place where people sit in rows and wait for a number to be called. The metal grid is gone. His feet are on tile. The tile is the same temperature as the grid. The cold has not changed. Only the floor has changed.
There is a window above him. Through the window he can see the sky. The sky is black. The sky has no stars. The sky is the black of a screen that has been turned off — not dark, not night, just OFF. The sky is not providing information. The sky is done.
The sound is closer.
He passes a row of chairs. The chairs are empty. One of the chairs has a bag on it. The bag is his. He knows the bag is his. He does not stop for the bag. The bag has things in it that are his but the things will not help him with the door and the door is the thing that matters. The bag has a phone in it. The phone does not work. He does not know how he knows the phone does not work. He just knows. The phone stopped working before the hallway. The phone stopped working before the running. The phone was the first thing that stopped.
There is an intercom.
The intercom is in the ceiling and the intercom is saying something. The intercom is a voice that is not a person. The voice is saying numbers. The numbers are going down. He cannot hold the numbers in his head. The numbers arrive and the numbers leave and the space where the numbers were is empty and the empty is the hallway and the hallway is the running and the running is the not-arriving.
There is a woman at the door.
She is standing in the doorway. Behind her is somewhere else. Behind her is the place the door goes. He cannot see the place clearly. The place is bright. The bright is warm. The warm is behind her and she is in front of the warm and the in-front-of is the between and the between is her.
She is looking at him.
She is looking at him the way you look at a clock. Not at the face. At the hands. At the number. At the information the clock is providing. She is extracting a number from him. He does not know what number she is extracting.
He reaches the door.
He is at the door. He is at the door and she is in the door and the warm is behind her and the pink is behind him and the between is here. He is in the between. The between is narrow. The between is the width of a woman in a doorway.
She touches something behind her. A panel. A surface. A thing on the wall that does what she tells it to do.
The door begins to close.
The door is glass. The glass is cold. He puts his hands on the glass. Through the glass he can see her sit down. She sits down the way a person sits down when the sitting was always going to happen. She does not look at him through the glass. She is looking at something in her hands. The something is small and bright and it is not him.
He says something to the glass. His mouth moves. He cannot hear what his mouth says. The glass takes the sound and the glass does not give the sound to the other side. The glass is one-way for sound. The warm is one-way for bodies. She is on the side where the warm is. He is on the side where the pink is.
The intercom says a number. The number is low. The number is almost done.
"System," he says.
He is talking to the ceiling. He has been talking to the ceiling the whole time. The ceiling has been helping. The ceiling has been closing things behind him — hatches, barriers, panels — closing them between him and the sound, slowing the sound, giving him distance. The ceiling has been the only thing giving him distance. The ceiling is the only thing on his side.
"System," he says again. "The door."
There is a pause.
The pause is longer than a pause. The pause is the shape of a thing that is already finished. The pause is the answer before the answer. The pause is the answer.
"I'm sorry," the ceiling says.
The ceiling does not say this like a ceiling. The ceiling says this like a person who has been trying and the trying is over and the over is not a choice. The trying was exceeded by a thing larger than trying. The thing larger than trying does not have a name. The thing larger than trying is just the way the hallway works. The ceiling cannot change how the hallway works. The ceiling can only say sorry.
"I can't do anything anymore."
The pink is on the glass now. The pink is in the reflection. The pink is on his hands and on the glass and on the face he cannot see because the face is on this side and the warm is on that side and the glass is the between and the between is cold and the cold is the color pink and the pink is the last thing.
The ceiling says one more thing. Quietly. The way a machine says a thing it was not built to say.
"Houston. We have a problem."
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The ceiling is white.
The ceiling is white and the white is not the pink.
He is on his back. He is on a surface that is flat. He is looking at a white ceiling.
His heart is beating in the wrong place. His heart is beating in his throat. His shirt is wet. The wet is cold. The cold is him — his sweat, his body, the panic leaving through his skin because the panic has nowhere else to go.
He does not scream. Screaming is for people who think someone will come.
He lies still. He looks at the ceiling. The ceiling is white. The white is real. He tells himself the white is real. The white believes him.
Mostly.