I'm Bernie Haskins, I live in Dogwood, Virginia, I'm neurotic, and I have an obvious toupee.

I'm stuck in Elevator B of the Dogwood Psychological Center with two other patients, a young woman and a middle-aged man. They know that I've seen them before—in the waiting room, in the hallways, in the atrium sharing a cigarette. And still they ignore me. Shit, they're moving. Okay. Now I can only imagine what mental maladies strike them with consistent folly. In that respect, we're practically brethren. And I don't want to meet them. That's it, plain and simple. I'm not about to let intimacy ruin my good week. I slept the normal eight hours a night, took the downers, uppers, stabilizers and vitamins. I was on top. No way can I meet these people. No way. This week I didn't talk to a solitary human being save for the girl trying to sell me an herbal penis growth remedy over the phone. Well, she sounded cute. But no. I didn't ask her for a name. Couldn't. And I didn't have lunch with my mother, the shrew, the Stalin-incarnate. And I didn't give in to my sister and take her to whatever meat-is-murder rally happened to be at the convention center. My week was peaceful and silent, the only sure way to maintain sanity in this cruel circus.

Crud. They're moving. Hopefully they won't talk. That would be the worst. And worse than that? If they try to talk to me. Silence isn't a can of beans, though, what I always say. Well, shit. I don't know what these two are thinking. We share this elevator, and I have to know what they're thinking. You see, I'm a storyteller, naturally I suppose. I invent personas. That way, I always prevail. No letdowns. They don't have names, and I hear them breathing. This is a violation. As far as I'm concerned, this is my elevator. Now they're tainting it.

"Okay," the older man says. "Just gotta get through one more session, and I'm done."

Fuck. It seems they have mouths, too. Okay, I'll describe them a little, just for story-telling purposes. The man—grizzled red Nationals cap, jean jacket, smells like tobacco and chewing gum. Looks like Harrison Ford. The girl—body like a missile, oppressive low-rise jeans. There's a mole on her cheek off center of her mouth. The man has a tattoo of an angry duck on his neck that looks green and faded, an old college football ring, and a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in his right hand. The girl? She's looking at the ceiling, thick brown eyes. She smells like heaven and sweat. The man, nervously tapping his finger on the mirrored walls. The girl, straightening her back from a casual slump. The man, the girl—the man and the girl. Okay, now it's too much. If you're like me and your name is Bernie Haskins, you tend to let your imagination get away from you.

But In a few moments, they'll probably meet each other, fall in love, and live in Key West for the rest of their lives. Collision. Maybe Darwin was right, that we're cursed monkeys; it's almost disgusting in a way. Would I live in Key West? Too hot, too wet. Thunderstorms every day. But surely, they'll love the sunshine state, them and their 2.5 kids, their lobster dinners and their flipping dog Marley. Damn it. I can't let that happen, can I? I can't let men and women succeed.

From the looks of it, the man's a quitter, and the girl's a starlet. Old. Young. Afraid. Reckless. They go neither up, nor down. They ride. They're in movement without muscles, transition without bias. That's who they are. Good enough for me. But they're breathing too loud. They wreak of everything that is human, and I don't like that, especially now. Here it is. Now I have to know them. These two need stories, scenarios, snippets, snapshots and slices of pretense, imagination, subtleties and incongruous placements of character. In short, they need a voice. I can place them in their fears. That's Dr. Fare's advice. Be afraid - be very afraid. If it helps me, he says. Create them. Don't judge. Create. Creation is good. By that logic, I might be God. And who messes with God this day in age? I wish I had lightning bolt powers, but I don't. I'll settle for the imagination.

The girl smiles. Oh crud. Oh sweet glory of a toothy grin. A memory, perhaps. Jezebels, sluts and feral cats, all sleeping in the same bed with the same man. That's her smile. Ripe with impropriety. Okay, I'm going too far. I'll calm down.

Christ. The man, he's looking at the girl. She doesn't notice, but I sense a thin icing of fear about his face, as if the elevator's plummeting to the ground. He fears and yields to gravity. He's lost.

Crud, here we go again. Maybe imagination's okay. Maybe I can have a little fun.

First, these two need names. That's it. Names. Let's call him Jim. He looks like a Jim. Jim Jackson. That's it. Blue-collar worker. Chemical production, or a West Virginia coal miner. Loves his bratty kids, maybe plays guitar in a country-rock band to get a way from the wife. Nope. That's too simple. Maybe he's a - oh fuck. Let's just call him Jim Jackson. That's it, Jim Jackson.

Her? A Stacy? No, not a Stacy. Maybe a Violet. Pretty name, pretty body. Like a pretty flower. That's her name. Pretty name, pretty flower. Violet Haskins, wife of me, Bernie Haskins. She cooks me prime rib every Thursday. She's a dynamo in the sack. Violet Haskins. Likes to dance to Van Halen. Thinks she can get away with anything. That's my wife, Violet Haskins—

Good grief.

Okay, okay Bernie. Calm down. The elevator just started. Let's take a ride. Just picture yourself at the Academy Awards, some tart arm-in-arm. It's only an elevator, dear sir. Okay? Good.

Oh man, Jim's picking his nose. Why's he doing that? Is he nervous? Okay. Okay, now it's on. Now my scenarios are an explosion. Crap. Here comes the story of Jim Jackson, brought to you by me, Bernie Haskins, superhero and director extraordinaire—

In the elevator, Jim's face has wrinkled weight. Disaster lingers around him like a stench. His hair is thinning now. Beneath his cap is a skull housing yesterday's brain and memories fraught with complication. His eyes have the forced condition of misguided hope. The doctors say this: take your medicine, and you won't go back to the ward. In group therapy, Jim tells the others he shouldn't be there. That he's married, or maybe he's important. The hallucinations have stopped. Even in the elevator, he feels housed and warm, maybe hearing the quiet buzz of the mechanical pulleys beneath him or above him. Maybe his soul has finally lifted. Or his happiness becomes a forced illusion. Isn't this what he wants? To rise. To fall again, to rise again. He doesn't think man was meant to be invincible. And certainly not him, a failed businessman, a divorcee, three years away from Rogaine or a flight to Barbados to reclaim his youth. And of course, he can't think long on the small misfortunes of his life. Not anymore at least. That grows old, just like fooling his doctors.

The years are unfolding away from him. Age is his enemy. His thoughts run, stop: he thinks of his daughter, Aria. She wants to play music. Buy her a guitar, he thinks. There's nothing more rewarding than creation, and his daughter's wild blue eyes have every indication of a Sheryl Crow in-the-making. In private mind-forums, he sees her croon in front of screaming people, fanatics who want their lives as vibrant and fantastic as this, the elevator that carries him. Up. Down. But the dream, like riding this elevator, snaps away from him.

Disaster billows like smoke for those who are incomplete and suffering. And Jim is no exception. The hydraulics of the elevator buzz, and the system rattles. The housing jars. The quiet box erupts in noise. The meter says fourteen, but now it's dropping. Thirteen. Ten. Nine. Jim feels his weight become nothing. The elevator screeches. Jim doesn't think. In a second, he hits the emergency stop. The box shakes, and he rumbles to the floor, crouches, makes his body small. He starts to think. Hard. He sees his daughter at his funeral. She's wearing a black veil. Suddenly he remembers his father's belt at ten years old, the swift justice given him for ruining his younger sister's birthday party. He didn't mean to. He didn't mean to put a dead frog on the cake.

As the elevator falls, Jim feels light, lifted of weight. This is the end. He remembers fighting in Panama, where every day became the absence of hope. More men have met grizzlier deaths. Not Jim. Jim would rather die here than anywhere else. Die in this box. Die in this hole. As the elevator falls, the sounds around him become a cacophony of shattered metal, sparks, fumes from the electronics on the panel. The noise becomes an explosion, not of words, but of thoughts, rapid and removed. Five seconds before Jim hits the ground, where all things begin, he pees himself and soils the jeans he'd bought from a consignment store. The noise is terrible. He closes his eyes. He closes them so hard they hurt—

Okay. Enough. Now I killed off Jim. He's dead now. Good grief. Good flipping grief I killed him. Damn. Okay, poor Violet. She's upset. Why is she upset? Her face—what the hell is that? Is she frowning? Violet isn't supposed to frown. She's full of vibrancy, full of explosion. I have to save her. Wait. She's about to say something.

"This is the slowest elevator ever," Violet says.

Crap. She spoke. I didn't think her voice would sound like this. So intoned with yearning, with sweat and carnality. The doctor should hear about this one, sure. He's got to hear it. Doctor Fare, I did it again. He'll offer me tea, decaffeinated. Crud. I hate decaffeinated tea. So useless.

"Come on," Violet says.

Shit-fuck-crap-weasel. She's got her own voice. Crap. Settle down. I'll settle down. Okay, Violet's turn, brought to you by the makers of Nexium—

In the elevator, Violet bites the stranger's lower lip, tugs at it with her teeth. There's breathing, small indications of a hidden pain. The stranger smells of heat and fear. Violet likes this. It's an escape. She takes his hand and puts it on her face, the warmth becoming the sin, heaving and taut. She has endowments, and she knows this. Is she corrupt now? Can she show more than her body allows, or has her mind taken a break? Taking the time to breathe, she feels for him and grips him, an elegant vice. There's sweat. Lots of touching. Misplaced aggression, wild eyes and heaving. Violet's legs are tense as she slips out of her jeans. She hits the emergency stop. The lights from above, yellow, orange, and a little red, make the stranger's eyes look as un-reformed as any. She needs her blouse, un-ripped, un-stained. He cannot destroy her disguise. In the elevator, she's the dictator. She's a secret. But the stranger has to feel. The elevator shrugs to a slow ebb. The sound of hydraulics make her skin teem with the sweetness of any remaining love and distance. She remembers being fifteen and losing the secret to her body. Doesn't remember the jock's name, or his face. But she remembers the feeling. How it must've hurt to be like this, in the throes of first-passion, how it must've felt to be open, to be explored and played with, to be shaped like clay and opened like a box. This is her fleshy nightmare.

Exasperated, she winces with the stranger kissing her breasts and neck. The two rise now, bodies in sin. She never liked her hair. Tomorrow, she thinks, she'll color it. She's always wanted to be a blonde. Blondes are explosive. Blondes are vibrant. Blondes melt in the hands of men and boys alike.

This boy, he can't be older than she. A subtle nineteen—but a stranger, nonetheless. When he's inside her, she fears for her life, the vicious movements of animals in constant motion and impulsive wrath. With this, she feels like the last woman alive, and in three or four minutes, without counting, she climaxes with meaningless grunts and exhalations, expletives and demands that he stay intrusive, like a malfunctioned robot. She wants perpetuity.

But the stranger stops, as all men stop. And as soon as he does, she feels weightless again, sweating like a useless dog.

But she'd do this over and over again, with her friends and with her waiting line of boys. She'd do this again, just so she could feel that cold grasp of life and wish for something altogether warmer than her position, here in this galaxy, trapped in this moving box. This box, this hole, symbolic of her recklessness. Of her self-pity. Of her vanity. Violet knows this. She knows it more like the circle her twenty years have gifted her, the baseless emotion of wanting revenge on herself for exploding into her body, disregarding elements of respect and tangent breath. How many have fucked in an elevator, and called it baseless and disgusting?

Then, the silence. The two of them take in their air, remove themselves as two separate fleshes, and fall back against opposite walls of the elevator. They say nothing, eyes closed. As Violet dresses, she thinks nothing, and waits for the stranger to leave without a kiss before she turns, buries her face in her hands against the wall, and sobs violently so sex could hurt again—

There, we've done it. We turned poor innocent Violet into a slut. Violet Haskins, Supermodel of the Year. There we go. That's a good title. What a relief. I think I'm finished here. Bernie Haskins has won again. There we go. The elevator starts.

I lean against the mirrored wall. I notice a blackhead on the tip of my nose—disgusting. I'll tell Dr. Fare about it. He'll laugh. Jim and Violet didn't collide. If they do, they screw each other. They have thirty seconds to do so. They have.

"Let's cut the bullshit," Ms. Violet says.

Violet hits the emergency stop. My heart pounds, traveling the throat to the mouth, to my ears, to my reddening face. Crap-weasel. Here we go again. Two more human beings, talking through their asses, loving each other. Crud. I have to be quiet. I need to be quiet.

The man stirs. "Is there a problem?" His voice doesn't sound like a Jim.

"There is," Violet says. "It's elevators."

I remain quiet. I think of a time when I wasn't on medication, slaving for the good Doctor. Dr. Fare would have me admitted if I told him the truth: the truth about my plan to become President of the United States, how I'd fix the country with an air tax. That's like a billion dollars, isn't it? Crud. Dr. Fare would send me away for good. I have to remain quiet. No one can know.

"Elevators?" Jim says. "I think they're uncomfortable."

"We're all going to be late anyway. Let's have a discussion," Violet says. "First things first—we don't have to hate each other in elevators."

"True," Jim says.

"And secondly, I don't want some creep undressing me. It's totally not cool."

The good Jim smiles. "That's funny. I was just about to undress you."

They laugh. They laugh and I can't take it. A little joke. Should have thought about that one, you stupid ass. Little Bernie Haskins should've thought about that one, making a joke. Damn it. I'm smarter than this. That's what the monkeys do. They make jokes, laugh, and exchange numbers. Then they fall in love, something I can't seem to do. Good job, Bernie. You've been beat again—beaten back into childhood.

"You're funny," Violet says to Jim. "See. That wasn't hard. We broke the ice."

"I know," he says. "You remind me of my daughter."

"How old is she?" Violet says.

"Twenty," Jim says. "She wants to transfer to Stanford, I don't know. Study biology."

"There's a lot of crazy stuff in our bodies," she laughs.

Goddamn laughter. Well, looks like you failed, Bernie. There goes your good week.

"I'm Craig," Jim says.

Doesn't look like a Craig, does he? Fuck you, Craig. You're Jim. You're not Craig. Craig is a sissy's name.

"Sam," Violet says. "Samantha, I mean."

Ah, Samantha. That's her name. Doesn't matter now—my day's ruined.

They shake hands. This is the penultimate source of my doom, the shaking of hands, the melding of flesh. Screw all of this. If Dr. Fare thinks I can't make up people's stories anymore, I don't know. That's how I connect. These two, they're reflections of what I've always wanted. Respect. Some semblance of dignity. Look at me. Little Bernie Haskins in his golfing shoes. Of course I can't afford Reeboks or Nikes. Bernie Haskins—overweight, sweating slices of ham and pepperoni. Bernie Fucking Haskins—delusional, hallucinating, imagining things again. Bernie Haskins, the loser. Bernie Haskins, doomed.

"So do you still hate elevators?" the bitch Craig says. Screw him.

The elevator stops. Eleventh floor.

"Why don't we ask this guy? He's been quiet," Sam says, Samantha, Samantha. I can't call her that. Her name's Violet, wife of Bernie Haskins. She's supposed to cook me goddamn prime rib. She's supposed to be faithful and love me, Bernie Haskins. She's supposed to—

The elevator doors open. Freedom.

Craig looks at me. Samantha looks at me. I'm no longer here. I'm done—running scared. Again.

"Well?" Sam says to me. "What's your story, cowboy?"

I walk away. I walk away.