chair begins to slide. I wedge the brakes, grip the wheels. At first I don't understand what's happening until it dawns on me that it's the floor beneath the barricade that's dropping.

That's when I twisted around and lunged for the foyer. No chance I could have wheeled out of there. I barely managed to reach the door frame and get enough of a purchase to hang on. My chair though slipped out from under me and just rolled, end over end, down that slope.

The floor must have sunk six, seven feet. Way below the baseboard, like the foundation had given way, except there was no fucking foundation. You expected to see cement but all there was was blackness.

All of it—the china cabinet, bureau, coffee table, chairs—just slid down that floor and vanished over the edge. Navy would have vanished too if he hadn't got hold of that door lever.

Thus the devouring of one theatre of the absurd leads to another. And as is true in both cases, no amount of monologue, costume, or wit can defer the insistent gravity of that void. As theatre critic Tony K. Rich once remarked: "The only option is a quick exit, stage left, and I'd also advise a cab to the airport." [144]

The exit, however, is not so easily achieved. The Reston Interview

again:

Well I started yelling for help. You have to remember, my hands were all messed up from my trip down there. My grip was failing. If Navy didn't get to me fast, I was going to fall.

So Navy starts swinging that door he's hanging on, back and forth, until he can kind of swing, kind of scramble to where he's about three feet away from me. Then he takes this deep breath, gives me half a smile, and jumps.

That was the longest moment of them all, and then it was over. He was holding onto the door frame, hauling himself into the foyer, and then dragging me to safety. And all that with a messed up shoulder too.

On tape, it looks like Navy just hopped over to me and that was that. But boy the way I remember it, his jump took forever.

Though poorly lit with even poorer resolution, we can see in the video how Navidson uses the door to get in range of Reston, despite the fact that the hinges are about to give way. Luckily, he manages to jump free