Margen
The building has six floors. I know because I live on the top one: above me there are only the roof terrace and the aerials. But on the lift panel there is a seven.
The other numbers are worn, blurred by fingers. Not the seven: the seven shines, polished like the door handle of a church. Someone presses it. Someone presses it a lot.
The doorman, when I asked, didn't even look up: 'Six floors.'
Last night I came home late and, keys still in hand, I pressed it. The lift went straight past my floor without slowing. It lasted three, four seconds: through the gap between the doors came the light of a summer evening and an unmistakable smell of the sea.
Then the lift went down on its own and opened on the sixth, on my usual landing, as if nothing had happened.
This morning the doorman held the door for me. For the first time in nine years he looked me in the eye.
'Smells of the sea, doesn't it?'