You are holding him down on the landing of the stairwell by the time I get there, you and your friend, colleague? I don’t know what he’s done, but it must have been something bad. He is crying and screaming, and then you are screaming too, and hurting him, and then he’s gone, the one not you and not him is gone. There’s always one that goes first. Less hope. You all go in the end, though. All.

The screaming stops when you notice me, you two left. Always insulted when I don’t offer an explanation right away, insulted when I do. Why did your friend just sink through the floor? I don’t really know, sir, and I’d smile and be reassuring but I know that’s not the way to do things. This isn’t my body, isn’t my smile, and the teeth are far too sharp. Why am I here? Well, I don’t know that either, sir, no reassurance, but please don’t start screaming again.

Put the knife away, sir.

I’ll turn away for this part. I know where I am now, I think, I recognize the corporate-cheap carpet and the concrete of the stairwell. The red light from below. The hallway I’m backing into.

Are you done? No, I can’t tell what he’s done. Glass on the floor; call it his cornea why don’t you. Believable enough, with everything else here and whose body am I in, why is his eye gone, and no blood in that feather hair? Sir, I asked you to put the knife down. Yes, I can see he’s gone. Don’t pretend to be upset; you were the one who put out his eyes. Here, this is reassuring, isn’t it, an open position? Physical contact? Your hair is soft. For a second, I know you.

Have we met, sir?

No, I know. I don’t know where we are either.

I’m supposed to be here.

There’s just the two of us now, and a mounting sense of urgency. I don’t know. It’s the red, I can tell too. Come back through the hallway. No. No, this way. Not the stairs. You don’t want to go down the stairs. Please, I just know. You don’t want to go down.

Yeah. I think so.

No, I don’t know how they got there.

…who the fuck was reading Dante?

Well it’s not my copy. And then maybe that’s who I am? A guide, something, because I don’t know me but I know them, I know you, god, I’ve always known you and you don’t want to go down those stairs. Don’t ask why. I don’t know. Hell. We need. You. You need to get to the top of the building.

I’m supposed to be here.

I don’t know what the hurry is. Stop asking. Just come, please, this way, go up.

Your friend’s not fine. He’s very not fine, I can’t lie, no, don’t go that way don’t go down please, there’s all that light and I try and tell people to go up but they never do and then they go and I’m here. I’m supposed to be here but you could go. Jump off the building. It’s cool outside. Go to the roof and jump off.

For me? So I’ll know you never went downstairs?

As far as I can tell, we’re already dead. Like you killed that man on the stairs. I’ve never seen that before, a death here. He vanished too. You sent him, didn’t you, through the floor and down the stairs. That doesn’t matter. No you’re right. I don’t know, I don’t need to know, whatever will make you stay, go up, jump down.

Please. Because I asked and because it matters, matters so much can’t you tell you’re going to hurt and it will hurt me because I know you. I know you and I don’t remember the others, what others, there’s you backing down the hallway towards the stairwell – please no – past the desk and the book and even if I’m not enough of a warning, watch the book on the desk and the flames and the book’s gone, are you warned enough?

No. Please no.

––––––

I don’t follow you down. There’ll be others. And I’m supposed to be here.