Nightflower Candor

Any button?

            Any button.

            Adamma looked at the hundreds of illuminated dots in the elevator. Her fingers slid across the panel with indecision and surging memories of the elevator in her last apartment building. Her escape pod when his drinking worsened. Where she was served divorce papers and where her children vanished when custody battles soured.

            She looked back at the man who had introduced himself as Evan. He nodded in reassurance and she allowed the uncertainty to wash over her. She chose a random button but it certainly didn’t feel random. It felt special, predetermined. The elevator lowered them into an underground complex. They smiled wooden smiles, carved into their faces like old dolls.

            How long have you been here? Adamma asked.

            Too long.

            What’s that in years?

            Years…

            The elevator stopped and doors slid open. A quiet darkness stared back at them like the opening of an old crypt. She looked at Evan with racing fear but he seemed calm and motioned her forward with an unbreakable reassurance.

            Go, he said.

            I can’t see a fu—

            Go!

            She extended a leg as if checking the temperature of water. Rows and rows of overhead lights faded on until a grand corridor illuminated. Endless doors stretched on and on as a subtle wind from nowhere carried along. She chose the first door.

            No, Evan said. Not that one.

            Adamma thought it best to listen so she walked to the next door and her mind wandered to her children and simpler times as a young woman, a young mother. She wished she could reach out and touch their little faces. One more chance to witness their smiles.

            No, Evan said again.

            Why?

            It’s not the one.

            Adamma looked at Evan while her hand turned the knob. His words had landed with an old shape. Not that same voice, but that same rhythm. That same control. She hated how quickly old bruises comforted her.

            Think about it, he said.

            I am, she replied and opened the door. A desk lamp glowed on a man hunched over a typewriter. He hammered at letters like he was being chased and this was his final note to the world. The floor was covered in pages and she picked one up.

            She should have left sooner. She should have fought harder. She should have…

            The typist noticed Adamma and stopped.

            Why are you here? he asked.

            I—

            You don’t belong here!

            Excuse me?

            He stood from his typewriter and moved toward her. His grin widened with each step. He was just about to grab her when Evan yanked her into the hall and slammed the door shut. Evan sighed in frustration and didn’t look at her.

            You need to work on your listening.

            What—who was that?

            Now try the next.

            Adamma carefully stepped to the next door. She again turned to Evan as she opened the door but with genuine fear this time and not rebellion. He offered no instruction.

            Inside the room stood a woman behind an easel and canvas among stacks of supplies and unfinished drafts of her children. The painter noticed her but did not stop like the typist. Her hand worked like a warrior in combat and did not care who witnessed.

            Come, the painter said. I want you to see.

            What is it?

            Look. Finally...

            Adamma looked at the painting and stumbled. She glanced at her outfit and then back at the painting. A realistic image of her selecting a different button in the elevator. Or was it the same? Her mind searched deeper until striking gold or what it thought to be gold. This was a dream, she decided, just a dream.

            This is not a dream, Evan said.

            Then what is it?

            Dream-like.

            She laughed. Do you actually believe that?

            You believe it too.

            She laughed again but with an edge. You don’t know me.

            There’s another room we’d like you to see.

            We?

            Me. I’d like you to see.

            The painter was gone but all her crates and bins of colors remained. Evan stood waiting for Adamma among the unfinished drafts and family portraits incomplete. All these half-painted landscapes and promised faces.

            Where did she go? she asked.

            She wants you to come with me.

            A dream, she said, clearly a dream.

            Dream-like.

            She laughed and followed him out of the room. She might as well see where this goes. Back into the great corridor. Back into the elevator. All the buttons and destinations stared back at her and she wondered which one she was pressing in the painting. It was impossible to tell and she accepted that. She reached to press another but hesitated. She remembered her children getting out of school with “no” homework and guilty smiles. They would run into the elevator and press every button before she could stop them. Every floor. Every destination.

            She looked at Evan with a cheekiness about her.

            Any button?

            Any button.