The Place Between Floors

There is a landing the building keeps for no one. The stairwell turns and turns and at one turning the light is always on, though no switch governs it and no window admits the hour. A vending machine hums to an empty corridor. The carpet remembers a pattern it no longer means. People pass through on their way to floors that have purposes, and none of them stop, because stopping is not what the place is for. It is for the passing. It waits the way a held breath waits. Somewhere above, a door closes. Somewhere below, another. Here, between, nothing arrives and nothing leaves and the light stays on.