from Worst Case

In the Elevator...

The elevator is the last frontier. There are Indians and buffalo. Bring your shotgun and something to roast over the fire. You are Custer and Geronimo, Red Bull and General Jackson. Cross-pollination creates genetic diversity. You are in the elevator. You will not breed. The buffalo are hiding in the mountainside. The Indians are inside your skin. There are two types of elevators, hydraulic and cable, of which the hydraulic is most likely to fall. The lights go out. In the darkness you can hear someone breathing beside you. When the elevator door closed, you were alone. Now you are not. We all have relatives living inside of us, beside us. When the elevator begins to fall, drop to your stomach; cover your head. Don’t worry about the person breathing beside you. No one survives an elevator fall. If you die without breeding there will be one less Indian. Indians are important. Without Indians, team mascots would be reptiles and four legged mammals. Without Indians, there would be no popcorn. There was a movie about an Indian. She steered the canoe. She was from a different tribe; you wouldn’t have understood one another. But she knew better than to get into a hydraulic elevator. That was one of the lessons you lost along the way. The other lesson was more esoteric. Something about humility or was it history. Listen to your ancestor. She is on the floor beside you. She is holding your head in the crook of her arm.