If the elevator falls, plunges to the basement, could you jump in the air at the very last moment and land on your feet as if you were skipping rope, no harm suffered?  Or were you supposed to lie flat on the floor, stretched out to spread the force on impact?  Cynthia looks down at the filthy rug.  “Tell me this isn’t happening,” she says.

From “Trapped” by Margaret Watson in the Hamilton Arts & Letters Magazine, Issue 14.2, Summer 2021. Read "Trapped" here.