Anita is a bright young woman.  Her curly, long, dark blonde hair, in which blonder streaks light up with every motion of her somewhat childlike head, shines with good health.  Most days she would dress appropriately for the occasion at hand.  But today she feels like taking it easy.  What is the point of taking so much care in always looking your best, fitting right in, and standing out?  After all, it takes up a lot of time, and you have to take time being creative, making combinations from your wardrobe that aren’t old.

The truth is, she is still in shock after being informed by a good friend who lives in a Brooklyn apartment about a freak accident that took place yesterday.  The scariest thing ever; imagine you go to your work one morning and you step into the elevator you have been using every day for the last five years, and in a split second, just that split second you are stepping inside, the thing shoots up with such a high speed that you get caught between the wall and the elevator.  And that is how you die.  ‘It is just an accident,” Anita tries to calm her imagination, “but if you are the one it happens to…” And if it wasn’t freaky enough there were two other people in that elevator that witnessed the whole thing.

If this type of event doesn’t make you wonder what life is all about and who has the final say over life and death, then what does?  Anita asks herself whether or not this is even a legitimate question. Or maybe this time it is really justifiable to shove the question aside, as the answer is too hard to imagine.  Speculations are too sensitive.  Was this woman generous and kind, as you always read in the newspapers? Was she in touch with her own existence?  What had happened to her on the morning of her horrible death?  What emotional mode was she in?  Did she…? Anita knew she had a big and beautiful Christmas tree in her apartment.  She had seen it with her own eyes as she had visited this friend in Brooklyn a few days before.

“You can’t live like this,” she tried to reassure herself “avoiding elevators, trying to honor this woman by not forgetting her fate easily.”  She walks up to the mirror in her bathroom and stares at her face.  Gradually she is distracted by the details on it that want her attention: some irregularities in the skin on her chin- a few black heads, and wow, a pimple is about to erupt on her nose of all places.  She grabs a cotton ball and starts squeezing it.  “If only it doesn’t leave a scar,” she thinks worried.  And then she catches her thought, looks herself right in the eyes and with clarity it dawns on her, “Life is unpredictable. Better start living right now.”