When he didn’t get the promotion life became monotonous. He worked in ‘accounts receivable’, in a logistics company, on the top floor of a tall building. He was allowed one personal photo on the pin board at his workstation, so he put up a photo of a beach that once popped up on his Microsoft login background.
The adrenaline that he had felt in his veins while he was preparing for his interview had dissipated into a sweaty anti-climax. As he sat at his computer he tenderly fondled his ergonomic mouse, running his finger up and down the scroll bar, wondering how he would ever find any thrill again.
He placed the cursor on one of the cells on his spreadsheet and changed the colour — purple, pink, bright blue — making himself giggle very quietly.
When he checked his leave balances, he had 21 days accrued. He had thought about going on a surf retreat in Sri Lanka, or the sanctuary in Borneo where you help rehabilitate baby orangutans. Neither option appealed. It was 2 minutes to 5:00 so he restarted his computer, so that any updates would be done overnight so as not to disrupt his morning.
Then he walked to the lift.
There were four lifts on his level, and when the bell dinged, with its familiar timbre, he entered the third lift and pressed the ground floor.
On its predictable descent, the lift suddenly stopped.
He paused for a moment, unsure how to react, pressed the door button a couple of times, with no result. After a while he realised it was really happening — his worst nightmare. He was stuck in the lift.
Then he felt his heart rate go up, he felt sweat around his neck. He undid his shirt button and wondered how much air there was in the lift. He wondered which corner he would wee in when he couldn’t hold his bladder any longer.
After a few moments he pressed the emergency button and waited.
It was a full 20 minutes before the lift started again, and when he re-entered the regular world on the ground floor he felt better than ever.
The next morning he turned up to the building early. He summoned a lift and waited until the third lift lit up. It got to the top floor smoothly, with a soothing ding as the doors opened.
There was some disappointment in his heart as he entered his office and sat down on his ergonomic chair. As he opened his emails he wished he had been stuck in the lift again, to feel the panic rising up from his loins.
When it was time for lunch he rushed to the lifts. The third lift opened the doors, inviting him in with a cheerful ding. He took a deep breath and hoped for a similar experience. After a couple of floors it stopped with a thud, and he exhaled slowly and closed his eyes and felt the rush of excitement. He deliberately took a few moments to press the emergency button, hovering his finger tentatively over the little bell icon to savour the moment of fear.
***
Soon, taking the third lift became a daily routine. At first he limited himself to 3 times a day, then he couldn’t help himself and started sneaking out every hour to take a trip to the ground floor. If he was lucky he got stuck twice a day. He relished the uncertainty of whether he would make it out, or be left forgotten in the tiny cavity of the building, stuck infinitely between floors, with no destination, a void soothingly similar to the place he imagined he inhabited before he was born.
Soon the thrill of the ride started to wane, and as he flicked through the sheets of his excel spreadsheets he thought up different ways to enhance his experience. He wondered what it would be like to be in the broken down lift with different people.
So he started making excuses to take various colleagues to the coffee shop downstairs, always insisting on waiting for the third lift.
When it stopped he felt his heart race at the awkward silence with his new boss who had got the promotion instead of him. He relished the tension with a new colleague who appeared to be claustrophobic and started clawing at his tie before they escaped.
When his lift encounters with colleagues started to become more predictable, (and they had all urgently reported the faulty lift to the building managers), he was forced to take a break from riding the third lift.
One morning he arrived and was devastated to see electricians hovering around the lift. A week later it was fixed, riding smoothly and with no risk of stopping.
Life became unbearable. He bought himself a new notebook with extremely smooth paper. He stopped restarting his computer to see if it would do updates in the morning and ruin his day. He started grilling fish on the sandwich press for the thrill of the staff memos that followed.
Then he started watching YouTube videos about how to tinker with the lift control panel.
One lunch break he snuck into the electrical room and broke into the lift control panel. He took the screwdriver from his pocket and fiddled around until there was a red light flashing for the third lift and an emergency warning to block access. There was a critical fault and no way of knowing if it would stop or drop.
Placing the screwdriver into his pocket he casually walked to the lift, nodding politely at a few people as they walked past. He pressed the button and as the metal jaws opened, welcoming him in like an old friend.
He took an anticipatory breath and stepped inside.
Fiona Murray is a writer and social worker, living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
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