The Elevator, Michael Docherty
A slender gentleman walked onto the elevator. Everyone inside paused and looked at him. His shirt was clean and unwrinkled. His hair was brushed down over his forehead, nearly over his eyes. His shoes were Adidas, with a fine scuff mark along the base which was hidden by the leg of his Ralph Lauren pressed jeans. He was different from the people in the elevator; he was ordinary. The crowd of companions during the time that the elevator was in suspension were awkwardly interrupted by the 'ordinary' man's presence. What happened is what is truly called an elevator tragedy. No, there were no power cuts so that the elevator stopped in midair. There were no babies being awkwardly pushed out of a screaming woman as the unique group of elevator inhabitants looked on. No, this was a tragedy of a very ordinary man. No one in the elevator – not the quiet Jewish man in the back, not the rich looking fellow in the front, not the prostitute pressed against the button panel, not the accused rapist in the middle, not the three year old boy grasping his mother's white hand and definitely not the two teenage girls gossiping somewhere in the crowd – none of them had any idea of why this was such a tragedy. It was an uncontrolled instinctive desire that lingered in the elevator – a rotten stench in the air. Though they didn't understand, they weren't going to forget. It was universal feeling– universal to the dozen-or-so strangers who walked into the elevator that morning that is. The planted desire grew in the minds of the strangers in the elevator. Like a stem, like a weed hollowing through concrete – and it connected them – until they weren't strangers any more. Until the very essence of friendship was met - a shared idea, passionately loved by each person. The ordinary man tugged on the bottom of his shirt as he thought about work. And then he thought about what Carla had told him; he was going to be a father. He smiled. The friends grew deeply connected with their idea. They began to talk through the idea, through the winks and blinks of their cold eyes, the gestures of their lips – they were more and more connected as the elevator reached the ground. The man looked up at the floor indicator, "almost there" he thought. And the elevator stopped, with everyone's stomach lifted into their throats. The three year old was the first to break the silence. Then the accused rapist, and then the prostitute, and then the hollow sound – like the sound of a coconut being broke open, and then the sound of a body collapsing to the floor. The sound of the doors opening was followed by a herd of feet swiftly passing over the body and exiting. A new crowd of strangers got on the elevator. A father kicked the body outside. "Which floors?" he asked. The elevator erupted in noise as the strangers answered. A new set of strangers meant a new connection or perhaps no connection at all.
Carla saw her dead finance and walked up to him, a bottle of wine and roses in hand. She looked down at his crushed head; a tear drop fell against his still bloodied cheek. She looked around, to see if anyone saw what she saw. Everyone continued to disperse, not a clue where life would take them. A lost boy in red walked up to Carla and asked, "Is this your husband?"
Carla responded, "Was soon to be."
"You were going to marry a bad man?"
"A bad man?"
"A very bad man."
"My finance was not a bad man. He was a good man. He was a good man with a good heart, a good life, and a good child." She rubbed her tummy as she cried.
"We killed him this morning, it was a shared chore. A gut feeling, if you will." The boy wandered away from Carla to the call of his mother.
"Don't talk to strangers." The mother said as she slapped the boy on his wrist.