By Aggie, TIWP Student

“So I assume you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”

I reach to turn up my music volume, avoiding the strange man’s gaze and clinging to the opposite corner of the elevator, trying to spread indifference across my face—a difficult task considering his odd comment. I fold my lips between my teeth to keep them from curving into a smile. That was before he hit the emergency stop button, when my mind began to race.

The shrill alarm sounded through the cramped space, and I would’ve thought it was part of the song blaring through my headphones if not for the flashing lights that accompanied. The other poor elevator guests who had started to press the buttons, attempting to restart the elevator, gave up and resorted to listening to the man’s words. Me, I couldn’t hear anything, what with the alarm and the music and the insistent red flashing upon his distorted face, and my mind kept freaking out about missing my SAT exam that was to start in a couple of minutes, so I decided to look away and practice some techniques, as one does.

I sat down in my corner and heard my yoga instructor’s feathery voice. Describe how you feel. I am not stressed. I simply feel stressed. I repeat it a couple times before moving on. I am not confused. I simply feel confused. Again. I am not panicking about my exam. I simply feel panic about my exam. My mind feels more in order at this point, and I remember another technique. Shift your focus to something around you. The closest thing to me is the row of buttons, and I count the numbers and symbols: -1, star, 1, 2, 3, 4… up until level 8, and then there is the still flashing emergency stop button.

I shift my gaze and look at the people who are all listening intently to the strange man in the long overcoat. There is a woman who is dressed nicely, likely on her way back from a fancy dinner. Despite it all, I could tell my observations weren’t specific enough because my racing heart was still throbbing in a spot just below my ear, and my hands, which now wrapped across my knees, were trembling slightly.

Think of a place where you feel most safe.

My Interpol song just ended, and it’s gone onto an LCD sound system song where all I can hear is the insistent droll of drums. I am immersed now in the calmness of my warmest memory. A picnic blanket stretches out below me, and I can feel the rough yet soothing texture of its woven patterns. My eyes are shut, and everything is so deeply darkened by the black sweatshirt Dad let me borrow, which rests upon my face, filling my nose with a slight scent of homely detergent to accompany that of the grass and earthy scent. I rest and feel the sun upon my arms, which, despite being so far away, feels as close as the grassy hillside that licks my legs.

I can’t hear the music anymore, and the flashing of lights is replaced by my dad’s glinting eyes, which rest on a point somewhere along the horizon, lazily, and he, too, relaxes under the disarming morning light. The warmth of the sweatshirt sits heavily on my eyelids, and I begin to drift into the serenity. This was all before my eyelids become red with too-bright light, the sweatshirt is torn from my face, and the sharp outline of a trench-coated man upon the saturated grass, and a familiar voice makes me shiver:

“So I assume you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today.”