Liminality

The chance of two people meeting in that mezzanine elevator is about one in five hundred thousand.

She Meets Him: The story begins with one in five hundred thousand.

It was a vast, rectangular chamber clad in stainless steel, every surface shining under cold light, as if wiped until no fingerprints remained. The floor, patterned by raised squares, absorbed footsteps into silence. Circular light wells in the ceiling spilled a thin mist of white light across the space.

Three walls were mirrors. The space became a kaleidoscope, folding reflections. She couldn't tell where her outline ended or his began; silhouettes multiplied. Only two people stood inside. She glanced up at him, her head barely at his shoulder; he turned slightly to her, both silent and side by side. In his peripheral vision, her fringe slipped across her cheek, flashing silver in the overhead light. He wore a linen shirt, white as paper. Cold air settled around him, as if the steel walls drew out warmth.

White noise filled the air, like a shell pressed to the ear. The space expanded. Occasionally, the low rumble of the lift broke the resonance, then faded. In the hush, their breathing was sharp - two fine lines traced across metal panels.

Only the red floor number moved, leaping upward. All else stalled, as if they stood in a corridor of suspended time. If this moment lasted, breath alone could be dialogue.

She Meets Him Again: Three months later. She steps into another elevator.

This one was dim. The upper halves of three walls were mirrors, the lower halves and the rails made of laminate wood, their edges worn faintly bright from years of touch. The floor was covered with dark green rubber, embossed with circular bumps, dulled by a thin film of black grime. Above, a warm fluorescent lamp cast a heavy glow, making the faces inside look drowsy, as if people were forcing themselves to maintain an expression after a long day.

They stood opposite, backs against the walls, able to see not only each other but also themselves reflected behind mirrors, repeating into endless depth.

He wore a linen shirt in dark green. He murmured a greeting. She slid the earphone from under her hair and shook her head lightly, signalling she hadn't heard him. He repeated in a low voice, “You seemed very quiet last week.” His tone, carrying a faint smile she couldn’t quite read, made it sound like a rehearsed line. She pressed her lips into a faint smile and replied, “I don’t remember…Maybe I was tired.” She curled the earphone in her palm but didn’t put it back on. The elevator’s thrum grew clearer, replacing the absent music—another rhythm they now shared. Their attention lingered on one another, yet seemed held back by hesitation.

A brief crossing of eyes occurred. He lowered his gaze -- lingering a while on her pomegranate- red leather boots. She looked forward, caught her own figure in the mirror behind him, and in the side reflections, his image splintered into multiples—uncertain, restless shapes that made her look away. In silence, their glances, like two curves bending, slid across the mirror, crossing slowly in the dim light.

The red floor number flickered downward, step by step. The shaft thrummed with heavy noise while the cable quivered. If this moment could be held, perhaps silence would be truer than words.

She Steps Closer: A month and a half later, she visits him — the third elevator.

Its heavy iron doors were lake-blue, carved with floral patterns, the edges worn blunt by years of use. The floor was tiled with century-old diamond-pattern mosaics, their colours uncertain, time-stained perhaps, though she couldn’t tell. Across the surface ran a scatter of fine, hairline traces. Overhead hung frosted lamps shaped like bluebells, uncommon in such public places, their warm yellow glow making the flowers seem to bloom as if under a setting sun.

She held an orange. The peel left a faint stickiness and scent on her palm. Beneath her warm coat, she wore a faded violet cotton dress with black sneakers. Alone in the narrow cabin, she kept her eyes on the rising numbers, suddenly aware that her breathing had fallen into rhythmwith the machine. She did not look away. The ropes overhead creaked; the machinery moved with rhythm, until the red number froze at ‘7’.

Two hours later, she returned to the same confined space. In her hand now was a book, carrying the mingled scent of ink and orange. From between the pages slid an old bookmark. On it was his handwriting.

…

Make flowers obey, make the moon obey,

make the child obey.

My head grows into a mushroom.

…

Life is like water,

the earth like a dream,

The path drifting, wanting to cross.’

Gu (2009b:830)

The numbers began their slow descent. Wind hissed in the shaft. The air held both the sweetness of orange and the stale odour of an old building — two scents entwined, neither yielding nor apart, leaving behind a trace she couldn’t name. In that mingled air, memory stretched quietly, seeping through unseen seams.

She Walks Away: Two months later — September. She visits the exhibition Valhalla.

A deserted elevator hall, its walls and floor clad in eggshell-white marble veined with fine lines, like water flash-frozen in, congealing from the floor up the surrounding walls. The ceiling was flat white paint, lifeless. Fluorescent tubes set into the walls and ceiling cast a light like ice. The space was so clean it made her uneasy, as if even her breath might stain it. In black, she entered the hall and felt every sound—even her footsteps, even her breath—was too much.

On the right wall, three steel elevator doors stood in a row, shorter than normal by about a fifth, each with only an up button. Out of curiosity, she pressed it. The red number on the screen began its slow fall, from ‘3’ downward, like a pulse struck deep underground. Behind the doors came a low growl, heavy and delayed, as if from the earth itself—like a slow drumbeat rising from underground. As the display reached ‘1’, the sound grew louder: roaring, groaning, gasping; the vibration through the floor synced with her heartbeat. It sounded as if something lived behind those doors, struggling, but never reaching her — yet the doors would never open.

She stood alone in the sealed hall, listening as the growl rolled and echoed, not only within her but across the entire chamber. After a long while, she opened the exhibition booklet in her hand. It read: Callum Morton, Valhalla, a kind of non-place—a waiting room (Morton 2007).

She turned away, drawing a deep breath, and pushed open the hall’s main doors. She walked out toward the lawn in full sun. Warmth wrapped her completely. She closed her eyes for a moment and felt the clarity return. On a bench up the slope, she sat, the wind brushing past with her breath in it. The orange-scented book lay beside her. The wind turned its pages and left it open at a place marked by a pencil:‘There are as many intimate places as there are occasions when human beings truly connect… ’ Tuan (2001:141).

Reference List

Gu C (2009b) 顾城诗全集下集 (The Complete Poems of Gu Cheng, Volume II)，Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing, NanJin.

Morton C (2007) Valhalla. [installation], 2016 – Present, TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria.

Tuan YF (2001) Space and Place The Perspective of Experience, 8th printing, University of Minnesota Press, London

2025.10.18