Exoticism is my weak spot, and don’t give me that faint smile, don’t judge a book by its cover, because when riding the elevator you pass along a peculiar door on the opposite side of the other entrances, a door steeped in cobwebs and grime. The elevator doesn’t stop there, but I saw it the first year after I got in and who knows why I imagined tides, palms and golden beaches, frivolous people laughing, things forbidden and unattainable, and I said – enough of this bullshit! – and every day I took the elevator to the top floor and then the stairs and the attic where my tiny office was. Smallish, more like a box, nobody comes up here, but there is a desk and a desk lamp, shelves for the folders and the files and on the opposite wall there is an administrative map of the country before World War I, who hanged it up here anyway? Sometimes when I take off my glasses to rest my eyes, I look at it and imagine myself traveling, seeing mysterious places and astounding things, and one day it occurred to me to stop the elevator with the emergency button and to open the murky door. Imagine the palms and beaches waiting for me there, the people walking along those beaches, imagine the girls! But, just my luck, the moment I was about to take the plunge, the power went off and I remained there for half a day until someone came to my rescue. Yes, I had time enough to realize the irrationality of my impulse; you go and lie low in your cubicle! But I continued to travel along the map when my eyes stopped seeing the words I was copying, and today my colleagues sent me off extending their thanks, and most importantly – they allowed me to come and help as a pensioner, none of the younger ones had expressed a willingness to creep like a rat under the roof tiles. I was happy, and as I have allowed myself a glass of wine, I somehow unwillingly pushed the emergency button while passing along the door with the cobwebs. And then I froze – what did I just do? – yet I touched the handle of the dusty door just to put my mind at ease that I’ve tried, probably closed anyway, but the hinges screeched and something pulled me into the partly lit corridor. I walked quite a lot, turned left and right, climbed stairs, went down a steep concrete, then stairs again, until I hit an obstacle of some sort and my heart missed a beat, was I to find myself on the beach, with the girls? I lit a match and saw another door, I opened it and where do you think I found myself? In the tiny office where I have spent the last 35 years of my life. Now I sit behind my desk and when I grow tired of copying, I take off my glasses, look at the administrative map going back before the war on the opposite wall, and I am happy. This is my home. Every now and then I ponder at the thought that had I entered that corridor thirty five years ago, it would have taken me to the palms and the giggles and then as if an electric current passes through my arms and legs, but, as I told you, exoticism is my weakness.