The Elevator Parade

The buttons were sticky, warily displaying a muted red glow under the numbers. With a handkerchief, I pressed 14 and felt the aged elevator creak its gears to get me to my home.

In the carrier at my side, my tortoise stayed wrapped tightly in baby blankets. He hated the cold, and the vet even more. As a land tortoise, he was expected to grow to at least 100 lbs. But for now, he stayed the size of a small dessert plate.

Even though he was only 3, Winston looked like an old man. He had a wrinkly face, with tired eyes that relaxed underneath his buzzing heat bulb every morning at breakfast.

Today was the first time I told him about the figure.

“What did it look like?” Winston finally whispered as I shut the apartment door.

His voice was soft, dry, and meek.

Out of all the animals that have spoken to me, Winston remains the most curious. He is an honest tortoise, and has been my best friend ever since I saw him in the storefront. Tortoises were considered an unwanted pet, but not to me. I loved him ever since he outgrew that first egg tooth of his.

Ah, the baby years.

"Well…It had a drooping face. Black and white. But... I saw it in the elevator. It only appears sometimes, and it gets more intense as you look at it."

“Hmmm…”

I told him about the legends, and the children who would never come back if they were scooped up at night. But, it didn't seem to stir him much. Winston let out a short breath as I set him down. Upon his landing, he moved around to sniff the remainder of his greens on the terracota plate.

"Sounds very scary."

With a small bite of the lettuce and a lazy sniff towards the air this time, Winston looked my way to indicate he was still thinking.

“Maybe it will go away. After all, you aren’t a child anymore.”

"I don’t know, I have never seen it until recently."

“It traveled all the way from Mexico to see you, Moira?”

"Maybe."

"The cucuy is just a story. After all, I have never seen it myself. You scare yourself a lot, when you could be basking under your own heat lamp."

Winston let out a small chuckle, and continued to slowly pace his enclosure until he found a good spot to stretch out.

"I wish I had my own heat lamp and someone to feed me all day. You are very lucky, Winston."

After I said this, the tortoise didn't answer.

I looked over and saw that he was already getting prepared for sleep, exhausted from the trip to the vet for his quarterly check up. It didn't surprise me that Winston couldn't see the figure that would appear in the elevator walls, or in the corner of my bedroom during painful hours. My life doesn't make much sense, and these kinds of bizarre events are pretty normalized.

It was a mystery as to why I was gifted to have full conversations with animals, while others couldn't hear them. Unless people are keeping secrets about their relationships with animals, like I am, I will never know who can do the same with their pets. Nevertheless, Winston's talking abilities and my unfortunate magnetic energy to attract random entities is just another bullet point to add to my resume. I guess.

"Can you turn off my bulb soon? It's almost 10 o'clock."

Winston let out a yawn, and looked at me softly.

"Yes, I can."

Before I could get up from my bed, I realized there was an odd shape that morphed with the curtain. It was happening again, but twice in one day was more than I was expecting. I couldn't turn to directly look at it anymore, but out of the corner of my eye I saw half of a misshapen face. it was dark and hard to make out, but I knew who it was.

"Moira, don't pay attention to him."

"I...I thought you couldn't see him."

"Leave her. Leave us. You know what I am as well."

The figure disappeared, and Winston shut the one eye he had previously pried open to speak. It was time for him to get comfortable again.

I quickly turned off the bulb and moved back to my bed, getting underneath the sheets before anything else could happen. I was 28 years old, but I was still grabbing onto my pillow as if I were back in Monterrey sleeping at my grandmother's house.

That night, I dreamt of a bunch of Winstons coming out of the elevator. It was a parade of them, heading towards our front door.

I love him...but...what was he, anyway?