NOW ENTERING THE BASEMENT REEF   GENTLE STROBE   PLEASE TIP YOUR OXYGEN

BOILER
ROOM
AQUARIUM

Below the carpet, the pipes are singing sea shanties into a chipped plastic conch. The visitor badge is damp. The elevator button says “maybe.”

INVENTORY OF WET OBJECTS

one brass sardine
with an unpaid pager
five coupons for
invisible chowder
a velvet wrench
named Denise
moon foam in
a novelty thimble

The aquarium does not contain water. It contains administrative bubbles, several unlicensed bubbles, and a tiny velvet rope around the deepest puddle.

If you hear a shark in the boiler, compliment its stationery and back away sideways.

SOUVENIR HATCH

under construction relic

Take only photographs. Leave only softly blinking pipe barnacles.

operator of the questionable periscope