Catherina - Day 12

I, with a bag of garbage in each hand, felt particularly surreal loitering in the elevator lounge, waiting for the "2" to change to a "1" on the display screen above the elevator gate. Why was I here at this wicked hour? It was nearly 02:30 AM when I left for the garbage disposal place on the ground floor of our apartment building. My parents were fast asleep in their room. I did this to impress or out of sheer stupidity was unknown, because I deemed it ordinary for kids around my age to do similar things. Anyway, as the disposal room was locked, I stood there waiting for the elevator to pick me up.

How bored I was, merely standing and staring at the display screen! My lovely iPhone lied silently in my pocket, but I could not just reach for it when I had two garbage bags. The number hasn't changed – it fixed at "2." Now I cast hope onto the other elevator (did I mention the other one? That one was at 14, so I wasn't going to take it at first), which, as if answering my want, started to descend after me pushing the button.

A creak from the entrance; someone had opened the glass gate. Tap, tap, tap. The sound of high heels hitting the marble floor. A lady in red came into the elevator lounge. Twenty, thirty, fifty? Her age was hard to tell. Long, straight hair extending to her waist, darker than ravens, contrasting the blooming scarlet qipao of hers. Such a beauty. I admired every curve of her body under that red drape out of appreciation for beauty – a human nature.

She stood by my side, playing with a thread of her hair. 14 had become 3. 3. 2. 1. The lady walked in, heels again hitting the ground: tap, tap, tap. The escalator gate closed behind her, leaving me a last glimpse of darkness, of her silky raven hair. Weird. I had not the slightest intention to follow her into the escalator, which I ought to.

That escalator, in which the lady stood, kept going down. P1, P2, and then blank – the second parking floor was the deepest one could go. But I knew the escalator was still going, for it made that soft sound of friction. Trust me, I had been living in this building for my whole life, and I could tell a working escalator from a stopped one.

Now I was glad and terrified. Erasing the lady from my memory, I looked up to the display screen over the other escalator, which stopped at 9. Surprisingly the number was changing in an assuring way. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The gate opened, and my body automatically positioned itself to its right, so that I would not be facing whoever, or whatever came out, directly.

A young man came out, with long (but not as long as that lady), dark hair braided, crimson robe almost touching his black vamp. He must be over twenty, but I dare say thirty-five at the maximum. His face ghastly pale, identifying him with "those kids who never learned to take care of themselves properly, staying up all nights to play video games," as my mom often complained. I stared at him almost rudely, for his robe was embroidered with golden threads that shimmer under the white LED light of the elevator lounge. He looked like a fake model just stepped out of a history museum, specifically from an exhibition about ancient emperors of China. I had been to one as such, where they showed the emperor's robes and accessories. Thousands of years later, they were still delicate and had that costly look. Do excuse the plainness of my language, for I was shocked by the sight of someone wearing one such robe alive.

The young man responded to my impoliteness. When I first saw him, he was straight like a tower and eyes down, a sense of dreaminess lingered about him. Now he looked up at me, and I could see confusion from his eyes. Without speaking, I understood him, and I stepped into the elevator.

"Excuse me, do you know how this works?" pointing to the two columns of buttons with Arabic numbers, the young man asked me sincerely. If it were other people, I would be laughing at his face – perhaps laughing too hard that one garbage bag, or both, will drop onto the floor. I was unable to do so in front of him, for I had the wildest sensation that he was speaking of truth.

Now, I could understand my prolonged waiting for this elevator – he must be so lost in this modern space, trying his best to use it by his own will. I asked him, "Which floor do you live on?" It must be 2 and could only be 2. He answered so. I pressed the button and told him that the tadpole-looking pattern meant the number.

The elevator began to ascend, and we two stood facing each other in silence, but not an embarrassing one. I was curious about which unit the man lived in, for I as well lived on the second one. Why had I not taken the stairs? Come on! For how many climaxes of horror movies had set scenes in a midnight stairwell, I could not tell. But that alarming realization had branded me ever since childhood, and thus I avoid the stairwells as often as possible. For him, the young man had the air of being accustomed to silence, as if he was born and raised by it.

A red "1" changed to "2". All numbers were red on the display screen, but tonight (or should I say this early morning), they seemed to own a different shade, a darker one that resembled oozing blood. I took notice, but enough had happened in the past minutes, and so I consciously disregarded it.

The gate opened, and I walked the young man out onto the corridor, the soothing brightness of LED lights appeared with our first step onto the carpet-laid floor. The young man knew his way, but I insisted that I should see him be home safely. We turned left, 216, the unit he lived in, the second last one towards the end.

He bade me goodbye, and I returned a goodnight. Then, I walked in the opposite direction. I should turn right out from the elevator, 210 was where I lived.

Days later, the memory of that night had been almost buried in a dusty corner of my brain, only to be uncovered when I encountered a young boy in the corridor of the apartment building. He came up to me when I just exited the elevator, wearing a puffy, red jacket that looked greasy under the corridor's light.

"Miss," he called me thus, with an uncommonly harsh voice for a kid at his age. "Master would love for you to dine at his place today." Though he did not name the "master," but obviously it meant the young man. Looking at this boy with the equally vintage clothing and similarly braided hair - how could I mistake!

I asked the boy, expecting an answer somewhere around 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (that was the latest my parents allow me to be out by myself), "when should I come over?"

The kid curved his lips with conspicuous efforts, and sounding not without contempt, "same time as you met Master, Miss."

Holy Molly. That was not what I had anticipated. Sneaking out at around 3:00 AM to dine at my weird neighbor's? Sounds perfectly safe and healthy, doesn't it. Sigh. The kid won't accept rejection - even couched in the politest terms. Also, I dared not to reject anyways.

I thanked the boy and told him I would come around 3:00 AM. "You mean by the first cock's crow," the boy frowned, attempting to interpret my response (as one may see, people from 216 were not particularly good with numbers). "Yes, uh, how do you measure time?" I asked him. "A day corresponds to twelve hours," the boy looked amazed by my ignorance.

That was what I had been expecting. Honestly, with these people's throwback clothing and unacquaintance with Arabic numbers, I had to suspect that they still followed suit some ancient Chinese traditions (for I was sure their obsession with red had some connection with China).

"It would be five hours from now." I calculated: now was 5:00 PM, 10 regular hours from 3:00 AM, and thus five traditional hours.

"Good," the boy nodded with the slightest impatience. "Master will expect you in five hours then, Miss. Good night, Miss." Then the boy vanished from my sight.

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