Hate/Love - Greg

Prompt 12/30/2006: Think of a person you don't like and describe what you don't like and what you might say if you had to share an elevator ride.


I hated him and he hated me, and when I stepped into the elevator we looked at each other and knew what had to be, even before the doors thumped closed.

I stood to one side and he the other, but we could feel the animosity rising like noxious air in a small container. He whispered under his breath, and I turned threw a wild punch that skidded off the top of his head. He rolled with the punch then countered with his own punch which hit me on the side of the face. Then I hit him in the mouth, and I could feel with satisfaction the splash of something warm on my fist. But then he hit me in the nose and my eyes watered and the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.

We grabbed each other’s shirts, but it was unnecessary because neither would run away even if we could, and so we traded punch after punch like two hockey players in the middle of the rink. Now his nose was bleeding and now his mouth. I was bleeding over the left eye and both nostrils. Still we kept pounding.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. Two well-dressed old ladies stood at the door and froze, their mouths ajar and silent. We continued whaling on each other ad the door closed.

After a while the velocity of our punches slowed, our arms tiring. Blood splattered over the walls, but we did not stop. It was glorious! Soon we stopped punching, but I grabbed him and threw him against the wall, then he me. We danced about the elevator in a violent bloody dance macabre. The elevator door opened again and we fell to the floor in front of the two ladies who stepped back. The door repeatedly closed and opened on our two writhing bodies until we rolled back in.

It closed once more and in a moment we stopped and held each other in our grips breathing in each other breath, lost in exhaustion. “I hate you,” he said, but with not much conviction. “And I hate you,” I said, but realized, right then, right now, that I may have also loved him.