going up

in the house where i grew up, we had a half-bathroom downstairs. it was a no frills affair, this bathroom, but as a kid i would enter it and shut the door, and it would turn into an elevator, taking me upstairs. no one else knew it was an elevator. i never opened the door to see the kitchen and shag-carpeted living room waiting behind it. i didn’t need to. i’d just wait there a bit, leering at the magical crack between the floor and the doorframe, and then, when the time was right, would go back down and exit the way i came, my body warm with the secret knowledge that i’d gone up, then come back down. no one else knew it was an elevator.