Elevator Operator

Chapter 2

He sat around the flaming barrel in a lawn chair. He pulled out a cigarette and held it in a hole in the barrel until it caught fire. His friend, Aaron, shouted out to him, "Hey! A, that's dangerous!" He didn't seem to care, however. He thought to himself, he had no purpose here. It wasn't like he was poor or homeless, he had a studio apartment downtown and a trust fund! He bid his friends adieu and head down to the metro station.

He bought his ticket and rode down to the city. When he finally reached his apartment, he buzzed in and entered the building. It was nearing nine o'clock. He rummaged through the pantry and decided on stale cereal. He realized that he needed to go grocery shopping soon. However, it had slipped his mind and was not deemed a priority so he left it alone.

    He slipped under the duvet and drifted off to sleep. In his dream, he saw a woman. She had shaggy brown hair and a flat nose. Her lips were rather thin, and she had wide, azure irises that pooled between her eyelids. She sang to him but made no noise. He couldn't hear her. He began to sob at his newfound loss of hearing and woke up dripping in sweat.

He yelped out a 'hello' to make sure he wasn't deaf and sighed in relief when he found that his voice echoed throughout the walls of his apartment. He hazily walked in front of the bathroom mirror and bent down to splash some cold water on his face. He checked his analog clock with his newfound clarity and saw that it was morning.

A grabbed his easel and began to squeeze some oil paints onto a palette. He poured the mysterious woman's profile out onto the canvas in front of him. He painted her from memory as he had done before in a show-offish manner. Only now, he did it as a keepsake so he wouldn't forget her face. After he finished the abstract painting of her smooth skin and bright eyes, he wiped the paint off of his hands onto another canvas, which was another art project he had put on the back burner.

He got dressed and walked out into the bustling streets. A passed many beautiful people on the way to his undecided destination. However, he had decided that the woman from his dreams had strangely outshined every unsure face he had passed. He brushed his fingers through his hair and egotistically fixed his collar.

As he roamed the streets, it began to get darker. He walked into a community library, looking for refuge from the rapidly falling sun. His eyes roamed across the corkboard littered with flyers and advertisements. His eyes finally set upon a chrome yellow paper with minimal details. The paper read 'Everyone's My Boyfriend at Rock and Roll Night Club 11:30 PM'. A figured he had nowhere else better to be and that he would be there.

He walked into a dingy bar with the noxious but familiar smell of stale cigarette smoke. The comfortable smell urged him to pull out a cigarette and smoke it. His eyes frantically searched the room for a wall clock of some sort. As his eyes met the clock, he heard a timid voice being projected throughout the bar as everyone else came to a hush. He looked up to find the woman from his dream; the one he'd drawn from memory. She had the exact same features as his brain had graciously supplied him with earlier that day.

She spoke quietly but in a comforting, honeyed tone. "Uh, hey! We're 'Everyone's My Boyfriend'. Enjoy the show." His eyes bored into hers as if there was a deeper meaning behind them to be discovered. The band behind her played on as normal but the woman finally slipped up well into the third song. As the band wrapped up their gig, the woman faltered over to A.