Mourning Point

You knew a man who wore several rusted, mismatched keys on a lanyard around his neck, and it was inevitable when he became intoxicated on whatever he had in his pockets that his so called friends would steal them.

And in his addled state he stated, ‘if you can find the locks, you can have what’s in them’.

You would like to think of yourself as the sort who only watched this theft and heard that comment from afar and clucked your tongue as it happened, but the of course truth was that after you watched the seventh so called friend ‘remove’ that tiny piece of shaped steel you could not help yourself and partook with ease.

And this key remained in your possession for the last two and a half years, carefully being applied to random keyholes when there was an opportunity to do so subtly, when you had the casual courage to act like you did indeed have every right to try them, expecting admittance.

There is power in that, just like there is power in what you hold in your hand.

A hand that shakes, that grips, that breaks can change everything, anything.

Wave that flag, throw that punch, bang that gavel, and twist that key.

And lo and behold, just before sunrise after a long unremarkable night in a neighborhood far nicer than you had any right to be familiar with on a door that seemed to frown even harder as you tried the keyhole, it worked.

Walk inside and find a small apartment lobby with no guard desk, just a directory of units and corresponding last names.

A shiver runs down your spine as you see the man’s name, which is not so much of a coincidence as a rationalized blessing that it was okay to steal the key from him, that you were always destined to come here.

The elevator door opens immediately after you press the button, waiting for you and only you. And after slowly rising above the third floor do you realize one of the walls is actually a full length window, giving you a gorgeous view of the city you’ve underestimated all your life.

You are sober but the speed of the elevator seems to drop with each successive floor cleared, as if the earth was finally realizing what you were doing and where you were going and trying to use gravity to bring you back down to the miserable streets below.

The rising sun reached the 46th floor because it was finally getting high enough above the rest of the city skyline, flooding the elevator with light and exposing your stained ragged clothes, and you had five more stories to go.

Which took nearly an hour at the contraption’s plodding pace, and you were half-prepared to say your prayers in case the cable just couldn’t hold anymore and let you go screaming down to your death in the sub-basement.

But it didn’t and the light of the new day heated your personal capsule to sky until you actually felt hot as the doors opened into an apartment that pulled out a yawn from between your lips.

It was smaller than you hoped and decorated in furniture you’re sure you’ve sat and spilled upon before.

The fridge had everything you knew it would, and your breakfast was the same you have every weekday.

Flipping through the television you put on the traffic drone because if you’re not here for the ground conditions, you’re not here at all.

That’s when the music from above began.

The fifty second floor vassals were playing harsh industrial beats and howling feedback overtop easy listening/pop tunes. You couldn’t make out a single word of the latter but it probably has something to do with love or dancing.

The burns from this morning’s sun went right to peeling skin so that was something to do to take the mind off the ‘music’, but it brought along with it an understanding that your arrival had not gone unnoticed.

You try to imagine the faces and hands of those on the floor above, and wonder how they got that high, in every conceivable meaning of the term.

Are they watching on closed-circuit cameras, so small you’d never find them, or are your moves so predictable they know what you’ll do next long before you even form the thought?

As you go through the kitchen you find that the only thing that was different in the fridge was a small glass jar with plastic wrap covering it instead of a lid.

You grab it and are surprised at how warm it is for being in a functioning fridge, bringing it up to your better eye to inspect its contents from the side rather than above.

It looks something is swimming in there at first, but after a few seconds of wisdom and patience you realize it’s from the inadvertent shaking of the jar by your hands.

The first more sensible conclusion was a small, brown misshapen potato, which morphed into deciding it was a root of some kind, nothing too fancy because you’re sure you’ve seen them in some supermarkets, just not soaked in brine in a small glass.

It could have easily been put back and forgotten, but here you were, removing the plastic wrap letting its smell flood the room to make it was clear it was extremely fresh, and that’s exactly why you had to eat it now.

But not unadorned.

Going through your pockets you find the capsule and pop the cap and shake out the third and second last pill and grind them into powder with fake silverware and sprinkle it like salt atop the root.

It was time to get lost in the froth.

Ginger root most likely, you’re no herbalist or chef or gardener, but the first bite is unnervingly tough, almost an argument to cease the activity right off the bat.

But you continue, letting your teeth do the work and chomp into overtime and get halfway through the root, tearing, crunching and grinding it into digestible pieces, before the sensations click and clack.

You start to float up off the floor, the real personal elevator, your feet now pointing lazily towards the ground as you rise.

Looking up you unconsciously flinch as the ceiling closes in upon your head, even though you effortlessly float through it, momentarily seeing (im)mortal darkness as you pass through your above and someone else’s below.

And while visions of a neo-gothic cathedral slam dance in your head for the building you are rising into, of course it is just another apartment, more mystically decorated but still with the mundane appliances and furniture because even the vassals need to eat, sit and shit.

First thing you notice is the crude sticker on the fridge, reducing religion and history to a sideshow in Lucinda Sans font: ‘In other dimensions, I played Jesus and Hitler. Got rave reviews, too.’

Then movement catches the corner of your left eye and you’re glad that you are still in a liminal state because even if these important figurines have the ability to see you, they have more important fish to educate and ultimately fry.

The vassals have their hands and hearts full with the unclean people who stayed overnight when the doors locked automatically.

Some of the stains on these lesser sorts and the floors they slept on are mustard, vomit, resin and blood.

Despite this, they seemed to be in warmed, wormed spirits, twisting languidly on the floor.

For breakfast, the jugs of water comes with the first lesson of the day.

The students don’t get to talk.

They just have to listen.

Even to the vassals mocking them with their drunken questions and mock answers from last night.

-what do you want to know?

-what I have to know.

This sort of metaphysical jank means getting caught in the thick and you’re glad that you are staying more than thin. You even make a point pretending to clap to reassure yourself your transparency is a still a solid bet, so imagine yours and everyone’s surprise when a loud clap is sounded through the room, turning heads and hips in hideous synchrony.

Becoming solid at the worst possible time, a floor above from where you were not supposed to be in the first place.

All at once you are no longer floating, stumbling to the ground and feeling your feet and then knees land on the tile floor right beside the ornately designed rug featuring a snake dissuading its own tail.

Your defense is a weak, predictable excuse and the eyes of the strong and weak in front of you are clearly not going to be fooled, but you can’t say nothing.

-I had the key for the door.

The vassals looks at you with 95% indifference, 3% disdain and 2% pleasure.

-every key works on that door, was the reply with point ready to be driven home, you are just in time for this morning’s lesson.

END