Day 83 - Elevated Madness

 Elevated Madness

 Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

The group had split up, some were assigned to go up, some down. I had been told to go down. Floor 6, press down, wait, and enter the code. 0122. It made no sense. There was no “0” button inside the elevator. No zero floor. And the first floor was usually an “L” not a 1. But some elevators used 1. So that might work. But the zero was the real mystery. Did it stand for 10? Then why not say the code was 10122?

His name was Nathan and he was supposed to go up. He wouldn’t tell me the code he had been given. It was a secret. I wasn’t supposed to tell him mine either, but I found the whole thing too confusing.

We stood there waiting for our rides – me at the first elevator on the south side of the bank, him at the doors to the second. The woman at the third had already gotten on her elevator. I couldn’t ask her. The north side elevators seemed to be progressing along their merry path quite nicely. Two were already gone and when I turned to sneak a peek the third doors opened.

There were more people walking up and down the halls. Perhaps there were more elevator banks elsewhere. Where were they all going? I thought the goal was for all of us to get out.

I asked Nathan again, what he thought. He turned and opened his mouth, but froze in thought. He seemed as though he was about to say something when his elevator arrived.

“Sorry…” he mumbled, and then he entered his elevator and was gone.

My elevator arrived, and I had saw no reason not to enter. The control panel had two options – up or down. No numbers at all. I wouldn’t been entering any code at all. Unless of course I was supposed to press the buttons one hundred and twenty-two times. I didn’t think that was what they wanted.

I had been told down, so I pressed down.

The doors closed, and I felt the elevator engage and move. It rattled along slowly, and when the doors opened again, I appeared to still be on the sixth floor. That was weird.

I tried again. And again, I landed on six.

Perhaps I really was supposed to press the button one hundred times or more. I didn’t really want to, but I figured I had to give it a shot.

Sometime later, I wandered the halls, looking for a staircase or fire escape or anything really. Something different. Something that would indicate some way out.

I had come from somewhere. I had been with people. Where had they all gone? We were all told our numbers. Why couldn’t I remember where we had been? If I could find where I came from, maybe I would know where to go. But that didn’t seem any easier to do than getting off the sixth floor.

Why did everyone else seem to escape? Maybe their elevators were better. Maybe they had full and complete code panels in their elevators. I needed to get back to the elevator bay and try the other five out.

I was beginning to feel like Alice, stuck in a loop, going back and forth down the same path, always ending up at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

I began experimenting with going up. But that didn’t fare any better.

I began to wonder if I was indeed going mad. Why had reality chosen me to torture? What foul cosmic trick had I stumbled into? Was this purgatory? A nightmare? Or was I trapped in some metaphor of Sisyphean existence?

The destination was unknown. I had no other choice but to keep trying. I got on the elevator again and pressed down. Perhaps this time it would work.