AFTER ENTERING THE ELEVATOR, pushing the ground-floor button, and looking at the mirrored ceiling above, he felt a seismic quake that resulted in shatterings, rumblings, and dispersals. He, like the birds and rocks from the sky and the elevator from its shaft, fell. Beyond the copper doors and his own bloodied reflection, fellow men became broken and lifeless; communities became demolished; government became overthrown by disaster. Within the copper doors and his fractured skull, life became a breathing photograph, still in its perfection and silenced of panic. There, his wife makes Saturday breakfast in a negligee while he sits, whittling a walking stick. Her smile is fixed and her skin is porcelain. Their daughters play cards with golden hair braids. The sun peeks over the blinds. A crisp scent of freshly-mowed grass passes through the screen door. He walks to his wife and smells her hair. She laughs, scrambling eggs and buttering toast. The children are safe and brilliant. The home is warm. He will never stand from his chair.


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