There were four of them in the elevator; Bierce with his cane, two short women dressed in suits, and a teen wearing headphones which blared. They stood, all of them but the kid, facing the opposite set of doors. Being the last one to squeeze in, Bierce stood at the back. Their eyes were adjusting to the darkness.
Bierce liked to stand at the back; being able to scrutinize the others without them knowing gave him a queer sense of power. He liked watching and not being watched; he was like an invisible inspector in a panopticon. Bierce was at the back today, but he was bothered by the paradox of being simultaneously at the front too; the kid's facing the wrong way had altered the dynamics. It irked Bierce that this mattered to him; his philosophy had long been that nothing mattered, and to care about a thing like this was not true to his ethos.
The elevator groaned as it slowed and slumped as it stopped. Bierce cleared his throat as though he anticipated an acquaintance on the other side, causing one of the women to glance at him. Old men and sickness.
The doors opened and he stepped around the boy being sure to shake his head to convey his disapproval. In the mezzanine the two women clipped and clopped in their heels to the turnstiles. Bierce took a few steps out into the dim light and the dusty floor before he glanced back to enjoy the boy’s embarrassment. To Bierce's surprise he was still standing in the elevator, absorbed by his cell phone which he patted with adroit thumbs. Then as though sensing that something was not quite right, the boy scanned the unopened door from left to right, before turning and meeting with a confused look the eyes of Bierce in the mezzanine. There was moment before the doors began to close, and Bierce felt a stab of pity. He dropped his cane and made to move forward, but the doors closed before the kid could stick his hand in them. His desperate face disappeared and he was ushered back up to the entrance. It was an undignified thing. Bierce grabbed his cane and straightened up. He had an appointment. He had a train to catch.
His doctor’s name was Proctor; a thing the clinician took more joy in than the patient. Proctor was less competent than Bierce’s insurance provider had claimed; he had once told him to try acupuncture. And despite being told to be realistic and to face the possibilities, he had suffered the chemo and taken the drugs and defied expectations by living. He had half expected to die. He would find out today if he was to carry on this trend. He would take the good news, but it was futile to be hopeful.
He got off the train at the hospital station and hobbled towards the exit. The wind was swirling in the mezzanine, and it nipped the back of his neck as he rode the escalator. Beyond the moving hand rail, between the metal bolts, the tiny white petals of a Bradford tree raced up the slope in the wind like weightless pearls. He watched them climbing until his eyes were drawn to clump in the steps. A dead mouse stared at him from a few steps up; its top half caught by the mechanism, its bottom half perhaps long gone. Doomed to go round and round.
When he reached the top the mouse disappeared, as it had no doubt done many times that day, into the darkness to repeat the cycle. Bierce stepped off and out into the light of the street, relieved to be off the contraption. His eyes readjusted. Bright white petals were falling softly in the street on the ground like snow and gathering, and to it were gathering the petals swept up from the underground. He pretended it was snowing. It was nice to think so.
He put no stock in signs; he knew the petals meant nothing, and that the dead thing meant nothing too. Nothing mattered, not truly, and that it was wishful to think otherwise.
And despite this, as he walked, he was grateful for the sun.
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