The Long Way home

A long way home

Overweight, middle age and haggard, Eleanor Quasar, or Mrs Q, as she was called by her students, stepped into the elevator. She had come a long way, and was exhausted from her meeting. The conference was about discipline. She hated discipline. She had never once used discipline on her students, and watched proudly as they fell through the cracks of society.  If there was one thing she hated more then discipline, it was young teachers taking the place of old established teachers. Her apartment was on the second floor. The doors closed. There were about five people on the elevator, but she didn’t pay much attention to them. She was checking her watch. Her Oprah would be on in five minutes. She didn’t want to miss it.

I. S. Shnoovich wheeled his walker into the elevator. He was 80 years old and looked like Gollum.  He had no apartment in the building. He was a long way from home. He lived in Russia. He was stalking Eleanor Quaser. To him she looked beautiful. He remembered when, as a project she swept into his poor Russian school like a storm. I S Shnoovich was a principal. He couldn’t help loving her, and though she was fat and grey all Ivan saw was a princess. No one had ever loved I. S. Shnoovich before. Even at the age of 20 he looked more or less the same as he did now.

Ivan and Ana entered the elevator under the same coat unrecognized. Only Ivan’s head showed. If he had also seen Ana it would have given them away. For now Ivan just looked like an extremely fat Russian twenty year old. Ivan and Ana were Siamese twins. They had been planning this attack for months. They were a long way from home.  They planned to kill the two people who ruined their lives. Mrs Q, and Mr. Shnoovich. There were twenty bullets in the riffle. Ten were for Eleanor, ten were for Shnoovich. Ivan had bad aim.

Aloopgooberragdollfattyspec- 1345 was an alien. He was a long way from home. He was green and had one eye. He was on a mission to blow up the world. A Drunk hobo told him that the supreme ruler of the earth was Eleanor Quasar.  He had a bomb on him that would blow up one quarter of the earth. He planned to enslave the other quarter. From the outside Aloop... just looked like a three year old girl with blonde pigtails.

Muhammad was the first person on the elevator. He was a small man who went unnoticed. He was visiting his North American cousins.  He had never met them before. He was very nervous. He was a long way from Saudi Arabia. He missed his wife and children. Despite all his anxiety, he was very polite. He took great effort to say hello to everyone in the elevator. No one noticed.

I filled the elevator with carbonmonoxcide.  Everyone took the short way home.  I was the one who did it. I had been tracking Muhammad since he arrived at the border and I thought he was a terrorist. I wouldn’t have done it if I realized there were others in the elevator.