—WE’RE LUCKY, AREN’T WE?

 

Stainless Steel

 

The man in the elevator hunches toward his reflection in the stainless steel, then cocks his neck and head like a trigger before beginning to slap his face, mere taps at first, almost playful or childlike as the intensity blooms into frantic violence, each thwack!louder and more reckless than the last, a flurry of palm blows, until the doors chime and part while I watch myself walk through them, alive and unmolested, unlike the man who took my daughter the night I said I would be there to pick her up but never did.