Here I am, again. Standing inside an elevator as it ascends. I’m calm, though I know what happens next. It always happens next; the cable snaps.
Weightless, panicking, reaching for a rail or the ceiling or something - but why? Why bother? Nothing will help, even if I manage to grab hold. Nothing will ease the impact. How far is this fall? No way to tell.
Sometimes the elevator is a glass oval that drops then flings upward before dropping again. Up again. Down again. Again and again. Sometimes the elevator is a large, tattered freight elevator that rotates during the fall. Sometimes there are others in the elevator with me. Most times, I’m alone.
Broken elevators confine and condense my dreams into a three-dimensional cell. Dreams are meant to be limitless and dimensionless, not broken, not condemning. Yet I return, time after time, attempting to access a better life at a higher altitude with an inspiring view…
…
This time, the elevator doesn't break. Instead, it descends steadily, the doors open into a subterranean building with many rooms. Each room has a different purpose. One room - a restaurant. Another - a movie theater. Another - a strip club. The halls are curved and confusing. Dated carpet and dark walls. A disturbing place. More disturbing, though, are the patrons. They all have shiny plastic skin and shiny plastic hair. They engage in shallow, regurgitated, and practiced conversations. Dressed to impress in 50’s era clothing. Men in pinstripe suits and women in dresses befitting the proper dames they are. These rules are strict, suffocating.
If they see me, it’s over. I don't know what they'll do, but I don't want to find out. Where is the elevator?
I search in stealth, riddled with fear. I finally find the elevator. Once inside I see that it doesn't go up - only down. I push the button anyway. Maybe there’s an exit on a lower level. Maybe the plastic people only exist here, restricted to this plane of existence.
The elevator completes it's descent and it opens onto a black road suspended above a bottomless darkness. I run and run. I run into a dead end with a single door.
I open the door and enter a black room where a pre-recorded presentation is playing.
“Congratulations,” it says, “your resourcefulness has demonstrated you are suited for a training position.”
There was never a way out. With this realization, my will is broken. I vacantly follow the instructions of the presentation and move toward an upright chamber recessed into one of the walls. I step backward into the chamber, it closes me in. With the expulsion of a heavy steam, I am converted into plastic.
So many failed elevators. Why did they all lead here?
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