She wasn’t a religious woman. There was no denying that. She hadn’t given Heaven much thought at all, so to say her expectations had been confounded would not be quite accurate. And yet, moving along there on that seemingly endless escalator, she felt confounded anyhow. Not that Heaven ought to exist you understand. Not at all. People on Earth brow-beat one another about its dress code and management and admittance policies continuously, treating the whole of the world like one giant, chaotic, waiting-line, jostling and elbowing and murdering one another to get a bit closer to the velvet rope. That it existed, though admittedly surprising, did not in fact seem strange to her. It was the escalator itself which was perplexing. The thing creaked, and groaned, and was rusted to such an extent it seemed miraculous that it functioned at all.

She was afraid of heights so she didn’t look around, just straight ahead, eyes glued to the stretch of escalator directly in front of her, and staring at it with its flaking paint and leaking sealant and crumbling surfaces she began to get nervous. Alone there, high above the Earth, she said out loud, “It’s almost as though… it has been completely ignored since the day of its creation… or forgotten.”

(Note: the image, which is not actually of an escalator to heaven, was found here.)

03.02. filed under: belief. fiction. misc.


Love the marrying of image and story here. Don’t know how you could possibly have found it. Or rather, the image must have inspired the story. Sorry, yeah, that makes more sense.

Really enjoyed this.

posted on 03.03 at 10:46 AMPierce


I was reading the other day about “wabi sabi”  and I thought immediately of your photos of decay, disintegration and rust.

posted on 03.03 at 11:20 AMsimon


I send a deep g a s s h o your way, O Rust Master.

posted on 03.06 at 02:51 AMLori Witzel

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