Cold November Night. It’s a Sunday and it’s a mean quiet outside. Everything in god’s kingdom is afraid to move. The sky, even, appears stuck. Through this, I walk Murphy. My steps seem to echo around the world.

Back home, I rush inside the secured door. I think I see a shadow behind me but I don’t look. Inside is warm and bright and it feels safe. I pace still. Murphy paces with me. I check out the abandoned mail on the bench. It’s never for me. It never would be. I check it anyway. Ice Fishing Contest, the envelope says. Odd.

There’s someone inside the front door trying to get in. Sometimes I will let the person in. Instead I hide out of view and pray for the elevator to hurry. It never does. A prayer won’t help it. Floor 6, 5, now 4. It’s coming. But I hear the buzz of the door. The person slips in. I try not to look.

The elevator comes. I let the spook of a person – I haven’t looked at them yet – in first. See, I’m polite, even to spooks. I go in after with my dog. Murphy, uncommonly, sits in the corner behind me immediately. The only time she hides behind me in the elevator is if there is a particularly big dog already on the elevator. There is no dog.

I can’t help it. It’s the middle of the night and we’re the only ones alive in the middle of the world, I have to look. I raise my eyes. Feet. A coat, a cloak nearly, that covers almost everything. I resist a shudder fearing that when I get to where the face ought to be, there won’t be one.

There is a face. It’s a coarse plump and somehow warm face. Still the eyes are sallow, deep and dark, and where the eyes ought to be, I only remember a warmth. A deep unnerving warmth. It’s like the face of a weary Eskimo fresh from the fireside. I know the PC word is Inuit. But, no, this was no Inuit, this was Eskimo. The only famous person I can think of is that woman on Northern Exposure. But that’s not quite right. The door opens on my floor. Murphy darts. “G’night,” I mutter, stepping off the elevator. I turn the corner. When the elevator doors close I let out a scream. Or rather I open my mouth mocking a scream but make no sound. I feel as if I’ve just missed the warm embrace of death coming after me. I cannot say why.

SS