Elevators; Trees and Leaves

Elevators-- I hate elevators. First you stand around the floors, waiting for those cages of death to be as merciful as to open wide their arms and allow entry. And as you wait, there comes more the sacrificial lambs-- "Ignari, stulti, rustici-- pot-boys and peasant whelps, semi-literates and illegitimates." Befoulers of the earth, really. Talking, all of them of course, loud as they please. The ding. It's a quiet sound; it's subtle, withal the authority of an angry mentor. The lambs stop working their jaws. Silly beasts, who take kindly to no proper authority, who lose their senses to better flock with the rest of the herd, comply only with the polite social reminder of the elevator ding.
We board the cage of death. All is silent-- the elevator ding told the silly beasts with their dull, glazed eyes to be silent now, as it's only polite to the rest of the animals that they await potential death in silence, unmolested 'tween their own two ears.

And of course, of course, heaven forbid the beasts do any more than menial tasks. Heaven forbid they read the extra page or two for such simple a whim as curiosity, heaven and hell both forbid they read the extra page or two for such profound a whim as pleasure. The elevator rises, only to stop again on the second and third floors. Heaven forbid the beasts ever put forth any bit of diligence, any bit of ambition. Let them flock together, let them chew the cud, let them pass the cud through full bellies and rotted bowels; let their skulls keep light and keep empty. Let them dig their own six foot pit, throwing aside the yellow and white flowers, let them brown the green with their blankets of mud-- it's not unheard of anyway, and better to brown the green by their imminent decay than let continue the green be blackened by the constant passing of their shit.

The world can make do well enough without them.

My death cage continues to rise. The beasts are all gone now, unloaded on the lower floors. I wait, the rickety elevator jolting violently as it ascends to the tenth floor. My floor-- I've got the best view of all the dorms. My view is level with the tops of the mountains, my view is expansive. I don't need my glasses, off they go, and I see through the window a Seurat painting. Dotted below are the trees, some still flecked with little bits of little green leaves, others humbly waving their naked boughs, others whose blood has long since dried and has yet to be washed away by the cold rains and wicked snow-- the snow, it clings like a leech! It weighs down the stripped limbs, it freezes the life blood and breaks the spirit of the trees, whose drained branches innocently litter the streets, broken and powdered by the careless passing cars, driven by the beasts who've not yet reached the point of the pits.

Little sparrows float by-- a massive flock of little sparrows, their number and their wings blurring the ground below and washing away the view of the mountains behind. Little brown and little black specks floating swiftly past, blown awry by the winds, they land in the trees. I see the trees, some still flecked with little bits of little green leaves, others humbly waving their naked boughs, others whose blood has long since dried and has yet to be washed away by the cold rains and wicked snow. The trees come alive as the little sparrows in their magnanimous flock alight on broken branches. The trees look to my un-glassed eyes to have fleeting little leaves and jump to and fro with life, small flecks of colour shifting here and shifting there, the trees move with a life of their own, with the life of the little sparrows in their giant sparrow’s flock.

Another little beast passes by, this one a stuttering lamb whose senses are lost as the winds, stumbling fool, putrid imbecile—the sparrows take flight, the trees left with sodden leaves—ah if only he had yet taken to the pits!

Back to the elevators, back to the ever more potential cages of death.

Downward I go, only to stop on the third and second floors. Heaven forbid the beasts ever put forth any bit of diligence, any bit of ambition. Let them flock together, let them chew the cud, let them pass the cud through full bellies and rotted bowels; let their skulls keep light and empty. Let them dig their own six foot pit, throwing aside the yellow and white flowers, let them brown the green with their blankets of mud-- it's not unheard of anyway, and better to brown the green by their imminent decay than let continue the green be blackened by the constant passing of their shit.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare