Elevator Music

By Tim Frank

Coldplay is pumped into a city elevator, like sewage being poured into a fresh water lake. There is one person in the lift, named Ethan, a rugged construction worker, who has prominent yellow teeth and a widow’s peak. As the music echoes through the speakers, blisters form on his feet, burst with pus, and then seep out of his steel toe cap boots. The music plays louder and Ethan falls to his knees, feels a tightening around his chest, and clutches his left arm. Spikes jut out of the walls and then slowly encroach.

Finally, the doors open, and Ethan attempts to crawl to safety. But a sweaty Chris Martin appears from the shadows, and steps inside. He has a UNICEF logo tattooed on his neck, and cradles a Colt 45 in one of his strangely youthful hands. He puts his tennis shoe firmly on Ethan’s back and assassinates the worker with a gunshot to the head, putting the poor bastard out of his misery.

Tim Frank’s short stories have been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Metaworker and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook of experimental prose poetry is called, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24)