Mime.

Don't look.

It's been fifteen years.  Fifteen years of therapy. Both physical and psychiatric.  They said I was the only one in that elevator.  They had me convinced for fifteen years.  They said I pushed the emergency stop of the elevator. Now, I know otherwise. They said I threw myself through the anterior of the glass elevator.  It wasn't me.

It did it.  The mime.

The mime, it was next to me. I could feel it. I didn't have to see it. I couldn't look. That's how it happened last time. I looked.

I looked at it, and it looked into me. The old saying "the abyss stares back" or some such thing. That was what it was like.  Then I was lost. I woke up in the hospital.  They said it was a suicide attempt.  They said I lost my mind.  That wasn't all I lost.  Career.  Family.  Life.  I missed fifteen years of the world. Three presidents had come and gone while I was rehabilitating my body and mind, some of it strapped in to the white coat in the padded quarter of the hospital I was interred.  

But I was free again.  Free to live, to pursue a normal life again, to dream, to achieve, to succeed.  Until this moment.

It was here, with me, again. Another glass elevator. A different hotel. Another late night. Its presence greeted me with sheer terror. I knew how high the elevator was this time. This time, I wouldn't survive. Just. Don't. Look.

I could feel it imploring me to gaze upon it. Craving me to turn my eyes toward its androgynous form.  I knew if I did it would be the last thing I ever saw; so briefly, before the abyss engulfed me.

I began to shake, wondering how long I could keep my gaze from it, how long would it be before another guest pushed a button? How long could I wait for hotel personnel to unfreeze the elevator and and force it to its destination? I knew it had only been mere minutes, seconds even, and I could already feel the weight, the demand, the obligation that I look upon the mime.

The mime. I remember very little about what it looked like, other than it didn't seem to be male or female. It didn't seem to be a spirit, ghost, demon, alien, animal, mineral, or vegetable.  It just was.  And I could feel it moving around the elevator.  It was pantomiming whatever was going to happen if I looked.  I didn't have to see it to know.  I didn't have to look to be horrified.

The shaking became worse still, I gripped the rail and closed my eyes to avoid falling and perchance catching a flash of its visage, even possibly in my periphery.  Was I breathing?  Had I been breathing? My heart's roaring was so deafening I couldn't hear if I had been. It didn't feel like I had been. I couldn't tell.

There it was. The urge. The irresistible appetite. I didn't know if I could fight it any longer. The pressure in the ornate glass elevator was beyond what I could bear.  My senses were devastated, I didn't know if I was even still standing. I didn't know if I was breathing. I didn't know if I was even still alive.

But then I did it. I opened my eyes.