Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Elevator Excerpt from "The Tousand ways I will...."

I was waiting patiently on the 5th floor elevator lobby, starting at the call button, which was lighted on its up position. The waiting time seemed surprisingly long. It was 7:30PM and today it had being a damn long week, or so it seemed. The fluorescent lights were glowing uncharacteristically bright in the colorful space. The pendant fixtures seemed to vibrate with the sound of their ballast. I thought about the day, what had occurred, my stupid boss breaking my chops about how I should have performed on certain “CRISIS du jour”. I was annoyed. I was almost forty years old and I had to listen to a spoiled idiot who needs to prove himself every half hour. I also felt very tired. It had been a bitch of a year. My eyes were red I and I was rubbing my right eye with persistence.
The cleaning lady was dumping a trash can into the master can that she was wheeling around. I could see her through the glass doors and sidelites. She came through the doors in what seemed a long time. She was walking very slowly, as if her feet were made of led. She walked by passed me and she looked at me with curiosity and a sort of strange look, like if she had seen a dead person, or some kind of ghost. I was not that surprised, since she looks very strangely at me every time, and she never says even a word to me. “I’m sure she must be pissed at the fact that I throw my half full Dean & Deluca medium tea cups into my trash container and she may must not like it at all”, I thought.
She kept walking and turned around to kook at me again, and I was tempted to ask her what the hell she was looking at, but I decided it was not worth the trouble. Besides, I was really tired I just wanted to get home.
“Why isn’t this stupid elevator coming!????!! My first thought was that there must be having a party at the ballroom upstairs and these retards are holding the doors or there must be those damn Pratt students that are monopolizing the elevator.
I had the urgent feeling to leave, to take the damn stairs at once, and get out of this building. I’ve been here since 8:15 this morning, and I wanted to leave, but something kept me there. It felt like I my shoes were glued to the maple floor.

After an eternity, I heard the sound of the floor annunciator, and the door finally opened. As I got into the elevator, my eyes had to adjust to the low intensity of the elevator lights. It is usually dimmed, but that night, it seemed as if one of the ceiling lights in the cab had burned. As I walked in the figure of a small man appeared in front of me, but as I focused my eyes into his face, as he turned, I realized that he was a woman, a woman with the most beautiful face that I had ever seen. As I could not help it and looked again at her, I realize that she was really a man, but this time I realized that his face was not only not beautiful at all but, that he looked extremely evil and had an non-human, and satanic quality. I began to feel afraid now, and I stepped back hitting the elevator wall behind me with my back.
“Hello Tony!!” He said. “I was waiting for you for a long time!!”
I swallowed my saliva although my mouth was dry, even though my whole body was covered by a cold sweat, and I knew right there that at that precise moment I was going to die……….

No comments:

Post a Comment