I like elevators. If you think this statement is banal, even vulgar, I won't deny it. You are right. In fact, banality and vulgarity can also please me if they are well contextualized. In my defense, I must explain that I don't like elevators for their obvious function, that of saving you from having to climb stairs. What I like about them is the possibility they give me to hide. If I'm lucky enough to go up alone, and there's no one to see me enter, for a few seconds there isn't a single being on the planet who knows where I am. While the metal capsule takes me to the floor I've indicated thanks to a button of dubious design (usually), I am completely disappeared, I cease to exist in the world.
Since the journey is so ephemeral, I feel I have a duty to enjoy it to the fullest. Usually, I close my eyes to try to feel how I'm going up thanks to this invention, which has done so much for the accumulation of fat in human bodies.
Hiding is one of my little pleasures. The only requirement to enjoy it is to think that only I know where I am –forgive the ridiculous pun. But you have to be careful, because there is a delicate matter of balance. Only one letter can undo the magic: the distance between hiding and embittering myself is tiny and the danger of slipping is great. That's why it's extremely important to hide for pleasure and not out of bitterness.
My fondness for hiding is not new. I don't even remember when I discovered it. I like to think that's why I was born very angry, because they forcibly removed me from my first hiding place. I suppose it was disappointing to discover that everyone knew where I had ended up those nine months.
As a child, what I liked most was closing my bedroom door to imagine things without having to explain myself to others. I would line up all my dolls and pretend they were my children. Then I would transform into a musician, an actress, and many other things, while they watched me with admiration. No one else knew that, in reality, I was a brilliant woman. And my children, more than a dozen, kept my secret.
Later I wanted to live in a psychiatric hospital, in prison, and in a cloistered convent. Now I know that I wanted to hide because the world scared me. The same as now, when I try so hard to hide it and relax in elevators.
