BY RALPH REWES

When I stepped into the elevator, I had no clue, no inkling, no idea, and no intuition whatsoever about what was going to happen to me. However, now I could say there was something unusual somewhere. I never pretended to be psychic or possessed by any kind of psychic power. I’ve never been one to associate past or present events with my future, either. In this case, I could also say that in no way had I the extrasensory capacity to connect the incident involving my neighbor’s puppy with the events that later happened and those that are about to happen. However, I must confess that for the first time, witnessing the puppy incident stirred something weird in me. It was some kind of premonition, although not clearly defined. It was a vague feeling similar to those minor dull pains one feels and hardly really notices, more of a nuisance than a pain.

I tried to rid myself of the puppy images. I tried hard, I swear. Yet, the scene was like a re-run popping in my head again and again. I had no option but to ponder about the philosophical ramifications of the occurrence. How-ever, the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. It was as if the nuisance was growing into an irritation.

I must say that this was not the first time I had faced a similar situation. It was a type of situation that always provoked a quite disturbing deep-rooted, agonizing emotional upheaval. It did that every time it had happened. I would even go farther by saying that every new occurrence in the chain was more disturbing and frightening.

As I said, I had witnessed past episodes similar to what happened with the puppy today. I saw it happen so often that the dangerous possibility that it could happen to me, too, had made me feel vulnerable. Although I saw it happen to human beings, it was more disturbing where animals were concerned.

I thought men had the capacity to sort things out; animals didn’t. Animals are always more vulnerable to injustice any time man is involved. That is why I judged this unsettling event with the puppy as “an uncalled-for kind of injustice.” I must also explain that I always pictured myself as a witness, but never as the subject. Never. Perhaps that is why I am now so puzzled.

I decided not to spend such a gorgeous Saturday afternoon cooped up at home. I took off and headed to my best friend’s apartment. Charlie lived on the thirty-second floor of the building with the best view in town. We planned to spend the rest of the afternoon playing chess and sipping some exotic liquor. He liked to collect little bottles from every cor-ner of the world and then proudly share their contents with close friends.

Everything that afternoon would have been great, were it not for that incident with the damned puppy, which reminded me of a situation I’ve always abhorred, but which destiny kept bringing back for me to witness again and again. How all this was going to end, however, I could never even imagine. It never crossed my mind that —

It was about three o’clock when I stopped in front of my friend’s building. The sky was beautifully blue and a nippy breeze triggered pleasant reactions on all the uncovered skin of my body, hands, face, neck — my balding head — and a sense of protection in those parts covered by my overcoat.

I had recently reached an age many people referred to as “the middle of the road.” Peo-ple’s comments can turn a 50th birthday into a scary celebration. But I reassured myself, taking the optimistic portion of that phrase “half full,” repeating to myself, well there’s still half the way to go. However, in this case, it was the other way around.

The incident with the puppy may seem silly to you. I can assure you, it was not at all silly to me. As I said, what I witnessed was a repetition of things that had happened in the past. It happened with human beings, especially with kids. However, it happened more often with dumb animals — dogs, cats, even roaches.

I swear, there had been moments when I tried hard to imagine what a roach would feel when I banged it flat on the counter with a swatter. Many times I was caught between my ancestral hate against this pesky insect and my concerns for its possible feelings. How would it feel not knowing where destruction came from? Especially when in its tiny insignificant brain it didn’t quite feel it did anything wrong.

To better explain myself, I must point out that one of the things that bothers me the most in life is the possibility of man — or animal — being attacked, hated, and especially being killed in an unprovoked confrontation. It is really appalling this not knowing why the attacker, hater or killer would have so strong, negative feelings toward a victim who never did anything to provoked or encourage those feelings.

Every time I read something in the papers or hear in the news about hate crimes, this frustrating, frightening feeling turns into anguish. It is even more disturbing, when hate is not even involved. When the destruction of a life seems to be at random. It is like the terrifying fear a life being destroyed would have, never knowing what caused its demise.
The puppy was asleep. It must have been fractions of a second between the accident and its death. There was no way the little dog could have realized what was it that suddenly brought it from a living world into godknowswhat!

Facing now a similar predicament, I must consider myself luckier. I am still alive, although in no better shape than the brown, sad-eyed, little beast. I remember it jumping around me every time I stepped out of the building. The sack of cement placed on top of a truck by construction workers repairing the condo’s swimming pool squashed the puppy to death. No one was to blame, really. I only asked myself, how was it like? What terrible sensation did the animal feel during those few fractions of a sec-ond when he was suddenly awakened to die? Now, I think I know.

The elevator went up fast. In the back of my mind, something warned me, it was going too fast. “Too fast for what?” I asked myself. It was as something upstairs was waiting for me and I didn’t know what. The elevator probably went up at the same speed as usual. I had time to do a lot of thinking.

There were two ladies in the elevator with me. One of them stepped out on the fifth floor. The other one stayed in the elevator. She seemed nervous. They say women have a sixth sense for the unusual. If this is true, this woman was sensing something.

She stepped out on the fifteenth floor, and strangely she turned around, looked at me and spoke this cryptic phrase: “Good luck on your way up.” The doors closed. Now, with no one on the elevator, the next stop had to be mine. I was wrong. A short guy had the elevator stopped on the twentieth floor. “Down?” he asked. “Up,” I answered. The doors closed again. This time for sure the thirty-second floor was the next stop.

I stepped out, stopped for a while to look through the windows facing the elevators. The view was awesome. I didn’t notice anything unusual — not that I thought of that then. I’m thinking of it now that I am trying to recall everything as fast as I can, knowing that I have very little time left. I can’t see anything. I don’t feel any part of my body, not my hands, not my face. I don’t even feel pain. I know I’m dying. I’ll be dead soon. But what happened?

All I know is that the moment I started to walk away from the windows toward his apartment, I heard a deafening, rumbling noise I couldn’t recognize. Then, the windows began to shatter. The walls between them began to crack, and ceiling and floor collapsed in unison. I don’t know where I am now. I don’t know what happened, except what I described, but the causes, the causes I don’t know. I’ll never know!