The Kill Room

There's a bunch of construction going on in my building. Sometimes when I leave my apartment with my bike in tow, I'll take the elevator when I'm feeling lazy. I'll hit the elevator button standing in my bike helmet and rain pants, looking like the reason people give when they're explaining why they don't ride bikes in the city. The doors will pop open, and I'll experience a split second of panic. Because of the construction, they're moving a lot of heavy equipment in the elevator, so they line its walls with pads. I see the elevator every day and have become accustomed to its look. With the pads, it looks like a hermitically sealed room that the mob sets up when they're about to kill someone. I'm pretty sure my panic isn't from thinking I'm about to die, but from thinking about how this is how I'm going to look when they find my body.