Down the Void
Emergency Exits are located near each stairwell.
Good thing I stayed awake for the training video.
Vacuum tubes made of six-inch plastic walls, and
if I didn’t say riding one was my dream, I’d be lying.
*
and I always loved how in the old 60s Batman show
Bruce Wayne could disappear down a hole
and emerge at the bottom a new man.
As if it were a given a man could change
wardrobe and persona so rapidly mid-descent,
as if holding a fire pole explained the process.
But a quick cut on screen is an eternity
in the experience. The Void caught us
and carried us down and everything
was the same on every floor we passed,
as if we were just dropping out
the bottom and coming back out on top
like first-person Pac-Man, dying to get out,
or at least to escape our ghosts.
*
Dad was waiting for me at the bottom, but
I could barely recognize him in the darkness.
All around us were big semi trucks, the word
CARGO stenciled in the side in black, offset
by the white of the trailers. Had there been more
light I would have seen him limping, a trail of
blood speckling the oil slicks on the concrete.
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