地毯 Carpet

十九楼的地毯是灰白色的。让我说的更清楚一些，大楼里的每一层的电梯间与楼道相连的地方都铺着地毯，而就在今天，我发现十九楼的地毯与我所在的楼层，和我之前停靠（共同搭乘过同一班电梯的人们所在的）其他楼层都不一样，十九楼的地毯是灰白色杂糅在一起的，没有特别可以辨识的纹样或者图案的地毯。而其他楼层（因为今天突然的发现让我一直以来默认大楼里的地毯都是统一的这一想法有了些迟疑）的地毯有中黄色的背景，较深的草绿色和暗调的深黄色的长方形在中黄色的背景上间接排列，围绕着中心一些白色的花朵和其枝叶的形状而组成一个更大的长方形矩阵。每一个这样的矩阵形成一个被重复的单位，每个单位的长度约为两步的距离，与相连的下一个纹样单位间距离约为不到半步，依次向走廊延伸的方向铺开。难道今天是我第一次在十九楼停靠吗？难道我不曾与住在十九楼的人们在同一个电梯里相遇过？十九楼的地毯是如此的不同，我相信任何人，任何在电梯停靠的时间内眼光向楼道的方向停留过的人，都会注意到这种突如其来的色调上的差异。但我今天却是第一次意识到十九楼的地毯是不一样的。就在刚才以前，我一直认为我曾（不止一次）地在十九楼停靠过，而十九楼应该是每个大楼的住户都会觉得熟悉的一个楼层，一个特殊的楼层。因为十九楼处于电梯的最远运行距离的中点，当电梯不在运行状态时，便会有两台中的其中一台停留在十九楼——这一中心距离的楼层（而另一台会停留在初始楼层）。大楼里的每位住户都一定看到过“19”出现在他们按下电梯之前的荧幕上，红色的点阵组成的数字。他们是在看到这个数字之后才会听到电梯开始运行的声音。他们即将要进入的电梯是从这个楼层的方向而来的。

The carpet on the nineteenth floor is in variegated gray and white. Let me be clear. Every floor of the building is carpeted from the edge of the elevator shaft to the corridor that connects every door. And just today, I found out that the carpet on the nineteenth floor, unlike the carpet on the floor I live on and unlike the carpet of other floors I have once docked before (the floors whom I have shared an elevator with lives on), is a mixture of gray and white with no recognizable shapes or particular patterns. On the other floors (today's sudden discovery made me hesitate to assume the uniformity of carpets in the building), the carpets have a medium yellow background, where rectangles of darker grass greens and darker shades of yellow arrange themselves alternately into a larger rectangle matrix around the simplified shapes of white flowers and their foliages at the center. Each matrix is a unit that repeats. Each unit spans about two steps in length and less than a half a step in distance from the next repeated matrix, stretching down in the direction of the corridor. Is this the first time I stopped on the nineteenth floor? Haven’t I ever met people who live on the nineteenth floor in the same elevator? The carpet on the nineteenth floor is so different that I'm sure anyone, anyone who has ever looked down at the aisle during the six seconds of an elevator stop, will have noticed this abrupt tonal difference. Today, for the first time, I realized (and was confronted) that the carpet on the nineteenth floor is different. Just now, I had always thought that I had (for more than once) stopped at the nineteenth floor, which should be a familiar, special floor, for every resident in the building. The nineteenth floor is at the midpoint of the elevators' longest running distance. When not in operation, one of the two elevators will be on standby on the nineteenth floor — the floor with equal travel to the two ends (while the other will stay on the lowest floor). Every resident in the building must have seen the number “19” on the screen before they pressed the elevator, a red dotted number. It was only after seeing the number that they heard the elevator start to run. The elevator they were about to enter came from the direction of the nineteenth floor.