Homage to the Elevator Ride

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Ah, yes, the elevator ride. Is there anything more ubiquitous to the modern human experience than traversing in a small metal box? It’s doubtful there is a reader not acquainted with this experience. We all know the scene: an empty silence interrupted only by the sound of another stranger’s breath, an iconic red light ticking away numbers like a countdown to a nuclear blast, a jolt that momentarily disturbs our internal organs from their natural place of rest, reflective silver metal walls and mirrors reminding us that there is no escape from here or ourself — it’s a classic!

Some of us know this setting better than others. A lucky number of us are privileged with experiencing an elevator ride every day in our apartment. An even luckier few of us also encounter a ride on the way to work. But some of the less lucky number of us may only enjoy an elevator ride on the occasional vacation. Regardless of our exposure, however, we all know the ride well enough.

Children with less exposure to this majestic ride usually enjoy it even more than their adult counterparts. With age, many routine experiences become dull. Take school for example. It’s always exciting at first, but with repetitive compulsory attendance, our excitement quickly turns into resentment. But it takes us where we want to go, whether we want to go where it’s taking us or not. So, we always go.

The question is, how many of us ever take a moment to reflect, and even honor this sacred elevator ride. For those of us who haven’t, a proper homage to this technological masterpiece is long overdue. So, by virtue of recounting the story we all know well, let’s pay homage to the elevator ride.

We approach the always shiny elevator doors. On the electric panel to the left of the doors reads a red number “4”. Above the door we notice a black placard indicating our current floor, floor number two. We press the down-arrow button. It lights up. Wait. Does that mean the elevator comes down or we want to go down? We press the up-arrow button too, just to be sure.

Soon the red light that was number “4” becomes number “2”. The elevator doors slide apart welcoming us as residences for the next some odd number of seconds. We eagerly start rushing inside to this much anticipated sanctuary only to abruptly halt and meagerly retract our steps so as not to collide with the people exiting the elevator. But what the hell, we are excited to begin our journey after all, aren’t we?

We finally walk inside and take our position. A brief look around reassures us that we are in fact alone. Alone, that is, with the infinite reflections of ourselves in a hall of mirrors. How thrilling. What can be better than infinite elevator boxes and infinite reflections of our own isolation?

As we reach to press our desired floor, floor number “42”, the doors shut, and we feel the elevator sink beneath us as our heart rises ever so slightly in our throat. Confused, we realize it is going down. But was it because we pressed the up arrow or down arrow? Or was it because someone else called the elevator below us? Still, until this day, we are not so sure.

The elevator traverses down for only a moment before the light on the screen panel emits a red “G”. Ground floor. The doors open. And lo and behold, there stands another person. Fantastic! What could possibly be better than riding alone? Riding with another stranger of course. It is well known that other people riding with us in the elevator is the pinnacle of elevator rides. Now the reflection on all four walls not only shows ourselves trapped isolated in a metal box but another stranger too. Better yet, an infinite amount of them.

They briefly flash us a look of confusion. “Is it because we didn’t exit the elevator on the ground floor or because we are blocking the panel with floor numbers?” We wonder. Defaulting to the latter possibility, we politely ask our newfound elevator companion, “What floor?” They tell us with their hand, reaching around our body a little too close for comfort, mumbling some incomprehensible sound, and pressing number “23”. Roger that, stranger. Elevator talk is the best.

They return to their normal position at an angle behind us. We anxiously wait for the elevator doors to shut. We can’t wait to ride, remember? Except the doors don’t close right away. And since we are so excited, we nervously contemplate pressing the “close door” button, all the while knowing the “close door” button never actually works, which we have gathered from the numerable previous experiences of repeatedly pressing it to no avail. But maybe the other person thinks it works and is waiting for us to take initiative. They obviously must be as excited as we are to begin our heavenly ascent. We wait a quarter of a second. And then another. The tension builds. We bite our tongue. Finally, we resolve to press it only to have the doors close shut a millisecond before our finger reaches the button. We stand back at attention, looking forward at the elevator doors (as is elevator ride protocol), and hope our recent failure went unnoticed by the stranger.

The reflection in the shiny metal doors affirms that the person behind us most definitely noticed.

The jolt in our gut and the red light changing from “G” to “1” indicates the ever-anticipated ascent has finally begun. Hooray! We hear the silhouette of coffee house jazz akin to burnt crust and the faint breath of the stranger behind us, both of which amplify the ever-present silence between us. Naturally, we consider breaking the awkwardness by saying some overused banality. “Oh, floor 23, never seen anyone go there before.” No, too personal. The red light displays number “11”. “Big weekend this weekend. I love Super Bowl commercials, don’t you?” No, no, don’t say that. They may not even watch football, and clearly neither do we. The silence continues. Infinity passes. The red light displays number “13”.

The feeling of anxiety soon creeps down our spine, and we wonder if this is the beginning of an existential crisis, an emotional breakdown, or just over excitement from this epic elevator ride. As familiar of a feeling this is in an elevator, it’s always so hard to tell the difference.

Our kidneys rattle ever so slightly, indicating the elevator has halted to a stop. The doors slide open and we immediately step out on impulse. With one foot out the door, we realize that it’s not our floor. We take half a step back only to bump into the stranger behind us who is trying to exit. Obviously, the next logical behavior is to fix our eyes to the floor.

But then we realize that we should probably exit the elevator after all to let the person out, which is why they trailed behind us to begin with. We exit quickly, making sure to keep our head down like we are carefully watching our steps. We realize an apology is appropriate but by the time the words reach our mouth the person is already walking past us, so the only sounds that do flutter out are “swulllup meehh”.

We turn around to reenter the elevator, only to see it close three times sooner than it did when we were inside waiting for it to close. The only option is to throw our foot between the closing doors as a sacrifice. The doors clamp our foot together before pausing and opening again like speaking a secret password to a magical gatekeeper. And again, the doors open to reveal the sanctuary we clearly missed so much during our brief absence.

When the doors shut once again, we are alone. We feel the stranger’s absence. We ponder whether it was better having them along with us on this very special ride. However, right before we can answer this question, the elevator stops. Again. A new stranger enters. We make eye contact long enough to consider whether a hello is appropriate but reconsider the moment our eye contact breaks. Instead, we revert our eyes back down to the floor. Our previous question is answered.

Now we are the ones standing at the back of the elevator. Our eyes rise from the floor to the back of the stranger’s head. For some reason, looking at the back of their head is as hard as looking at their eyes. The eyes on the back of someone’s head are not made for eye contact.

Instead, we look everywhere else. We look up at the grey ceiling tiles. We look left at our reflection. We look back down and realize we don’t know what to do with our hands. We fold them in front of us. No, too unnatural. We fold them behind us. No, too formal. We put them in our pockets. Yes! A phone! A forgotten grace. Like an animal who acts instinctually without understanding the reason behind their action, we go through the normal routine of checking notifications (there isn’t any), checking our social media feed (there is no cell signal), and finally deciding to swipe left and right on the home screen as if we are actually doing something (we aren’t).

That feeling of existential angst slowly returns as we mindlessly swipe through nothingness before another disturbance of our organs lets us know we have finally reached our floor. A feeling like relief washes over us. Although, it is obviously actually sadness cloaked in optimism for our next elevator ride. Obviously.

We put our phone away and begin to follow the person in front of us out of the elevator. But the red light catches our eye. “31″ shines brightly. It’s not our floor. Then we remember that in the surprise of descending from floor two, we never pressed forty-two as we intended. We contemplate getting off anyway and walking up the eleven flights of stairs, but we reconsider. The thought of walking sounds horrible. Besides, who would want to miss another elevator ride anyway?

So, we stay. We press number “42” and anticipate the final leg of our journey. The doors close and the elevator moves…back down. Someone must have called the elevator down during our ride. It looks like we are in for another round-trip ride. Oh, how lucky we are.

As we descend back down, we wonder why neither of the strangers mentioned that we didn’t press a floor number. They must have noticed as they pressed their own floor number. Maybe they just figured we were enjoying the fun of continuously riding up and down the elevator. That would be the normal thing to assume, right? It’s not like there is any other reason they would stay silent. And, hey, they were looking out for us anyway. Thanks to them, now we can ride the elevator one more time! Yippee!

So, here’s to you, elevators, and your continually spectacular rides everywhere!

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Originally published at https://kylecreech.com on February 25, 2022.