Brooklyn

2024 Write Now Winner - Grades 9—12

I don’t know which I’ve lied about more: my age or the elevator’s age.

As the construction worker stormed away, mumbling about “old crones hindering progress,” I leaned against the steel wall, letting its ever-present chill soothe me. Soon enough, someone would come along who wasn’t as easily dissuaded and they would destroy the elevator, the sole reason for my presence in this vile city. I could only appeal to “the value of historic buildings” for so long.

Humans. They made my blood curdle and my stomach churn with hate.

With a snap of my fingers, I changed my appearance from an elderly elevator inspector in a navy suit carrying a clipboard to a teenager in jeans and a Wicked: The Broadway Musical shirt carrying a bucket and mop. I picked up a leaf on the floor, tracked in on the construction worker’s boots, and threw it in the air. A key fell into my hand.

The doors opened to reveal the one human I didn’t hate.

“Emerson! It’s so nice to see you!”

My blood still curdled and my stomach still churned at the sound of her voice, but not in hate. A smile crept onto my face against my will.

“Brooklyn! I was just on my way to clean your penthouse.”

“Thank goodness, my room’s a disaster!” She sighed in relief as she walked into the elevator, hobbling in strappy stilettos that looked more like torture devices than footwear. “You’re a saint, you know that? I could never clean people’s houses for a living.”

I almost said “me neither,” but she couldn’t know that I simply turned the dust on the floor into specks of light when she wasn’t looking. I’d been posing as a cleaner for seven months so I could guard the elevator, which was actually the last time travel machine on Earth, without arousing suspicion.

Seven months since I’d seen my own face . . .

She reached in her purse, presumably to pull out the key that unlocked the penthouse elevator button.

“Allow me.” I moved in front of her and used my own hastily formed key, then pressed the button and the tinny jazz I’d come to despise started to play.

As the floors passed by, I gestured at her long dress and high heels. “What’s the occasion?”

“I was at my friend’s apartment,” Brooklyn said, as if that explained it all. I could practically feel a social cue escaping me, barely out of reach. “We went to a party last night and I crashed at her place afterwards.”

Before I could make up a lie about how fun that sounded, she suddenly looked up at the ceiling with an expression of intense focus, which turned to joy.

“What is it?” I was always at a loss for words around her, and it was due to more than the divide between our species.

“The song! Don’t you recognize it? It’s a jazz standard!” Her mahogany brown eyes glowed with excitement, and her blonde hair formed a messy halo of frizz instead of hanging in its usual soft curls, but she had never looked more beautiful.

“You enjoy this noise?” I couldn’t help smirking. “The music where I’m from is far more interesting.”

“Where are you from?” Such a casual question, but it felt like a hand wrapped around my throat, stealing my breath but thankfully choking back the truth.

“Far away,” I said flatly, looking at the floor.

Brooklyn cleared her throat awkwardly when she realized she’d brought up a sensitive subject.

“Um, what does your shirt say? I don’t think I’ve heard of that show.”

I’d started wearing theater shirts when, several weeks ago, she had made the claim that she knew every Broadway musical in existence. 

“Perhaps you’re not the connoisseur I thought you were.” My rebellious mouth turned up in a smile.

Her responding chuckle was laced with doubt. “When did it come out?” She asked curiously.

I gulped, realizing the error in my illusion. Wicked was released in 2003, decades in the future for her.

“It hasn’t yet.” I met her eyes with an expression as cold and hard as the elevator wall.

Emotions flashed across her face, too fast for me to follow. She opened her mouth and closed it several times, and I almost laughed aloud at the irony of it all. She finally understood the speechlessness that I constantly felt around her.

“Emerson,” she began, and I knew instantly that the way she said my name would live on forever in my memory, even if I was exiled from every civilized planet for what I was about to do. “When are you from?” She asked slowly, not believing her own words.

Right before her eyes, I transformed the mop I was still holding into a red balloon and handed it to her. Her mouth dropped open and I grinned, waving my hand over the buttons of the elevator. A bright blue one appeared below the normal yellow ones and Brooklyn’s eyes widened. I hovered my finger over the button.

“When would you like to go?”