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Yep, ANOTHER short story. Although my first. I was given teh topic in the title (and subsequently passed it on to Meka), and this sprang into my mind. It's about 2000 words or something.....I dunno. Read it. If you like it great. If you don't, you'll know not to read any others. Enjoy.
--------------------------
The whirring noise slowly stopped. Robert listened to it carefully and thoughtfully without moving. He still had his briefcase in his right hand.
“Hmm,” he said, looking upwards. It was a fairly bare interior, not particularly astonishing. He turned around, as if there would be anything but a blank wall behind him. “Hmm…”
Nothing appeared to be happening, so he pressed one of the buttons. The lift still refused to move. So he pressed it again. Still nothing. There was an alarm button set aside from the others, but he decided against it. After all, he thought, it’s not exactly an emergency. It could get going again any minute. And there’s still about ten minutes left before I’m late.
So he stood back, still holding his briefcase, and blew air through his lips in the way people only do on their own. A tune from the morning’s radio surfaced in his head, and he started to hum along. He couldn’t quite place it, although from his recollection it sounded quite good. It was at this time that he realized he hadn’t bought a record in ages. And even then it was probably some “Greatest Hits” of some artist who he vaguely liked in the past. Yep, I’m boring, he decided. He wondered when it had happened. Was it something you grew into, like a sweater from an elderly relative, or more of an overnight occurrence?
Who cares? If he wants to be boring he can be. But he didn’t want to be. The individual aspects of his life seems okay, but the general message was…well, dull. That’s what his kids would have said. If he had any. Do I regret it? He wondered. His life certainly wouldn’t be the same as it is now. He wouldn’t be as far up the company ladder, more than likely. Hah, babies crying day and night, he’d probably get demoted.
But did that really matter? Sure, he had the big TV, a large collection of literature (and time to read it), and could afford to eat out nearly every night of the week, but where did it get him? What was a big TV with no on to watch it with?
He suddenly felt very depressed. He sat down on the floor, despite it not being the cleanest, and leaned against the wall. For the first time he released his briefcase, standing it upright, against the wall as he was. He checked his watch – an expensive one, he noted for the first time. Now there was only two and a half minutes left. He’d been thinking for longer than he had realised.
Once again air was ejected from his lips in the same manner. Sod it, he thought. He painfully stood up and pressed the red alarm button.
“Well that was a lot of use” he said aloud. He couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to make a noise or not. There were no helpful signs anywhere that lit up with, “Calm down, help is on its way”, or even “We acknowledge that you have pressed this alarm”. So he stood around, and in the usual futile way that people do, pressed more buttons.
"Oh, damn” he sighed, looking skyward (or more accurately ceiling-ward). He realised that he had just spoken out loud when no one else was in the room. It’s the first sign of madness, or so people say. Am I going mad? He pondered the situation. First boring, now mad in less than – he consulted the watch – nine minutes fifty seconds. If I am mad, he thought, I don’t seem to be acting it. I think I’m fairly calm, I’m certainly not one of those psychotics you see on TV. The thought comforted him. If he was one of those he would probably have tried to tear the place apart by now. Claustrophobic as well, most of them.
Then Robert had one of those moments people have. For a few seconds he stood still, stared at a point on the floor and thought nothing, as if his brain were taking a stock check. Another look at the ceiling revealed that there wasn’t a readily available escape route. The panels looked pretty well fixed together, although it was probably easy to remove them. They did it all the time in films. And besides, he wouldn’t be able to get up there anyway without something to stand on. He could touch the panels if he tried., but his upper body strength alone wouldn’t be enough to get him through. The gym membership was another thing he hardly used. They should provide stools in these things.
He sat down at his usual place. “Aargh”. He was bored. He didn’t like being bored, because when he was bored he started to think. And sometime he didn’t like to think. Because sometimes he thought too much.
His eyes turned to his briefcase. It had two locks, both requiring a three digit “password” from the revolving numbers at the side. At this moment he found it insecure. Anyone could get in and have access to everything with just one lucky guess. “I ought to upgrade” was his way of dealing with the problem. What was the next step up? Surely fingerprinting and voice recognition weren’t readily available. And if they were they’d be thousands, way too much to spend on a briefcase. Although you can’t put a price on security and peace of mind. He was starting to sound like a life insurance advert. When you think about it, he thought, your standard briefcase hasn’t changed for quite a while. It’s simple, inexpensive and fairly effective – but someone could easily take a crowbar – oh God, I really am boring.
It was a nice briefcase though – black, and real leather. The locks looked like real gold, although he couldn’t be sure. It was bought for him by a relative. He couldn’t really remember which one; probably an auntie. In truth, he’d had to replace it because it had somehow got damaged. He suspected he’d bought a better model. He’d even compared them once, and he was sure the original was just the slightest shade towards navy blue. He regretted comparing them now. He wished that the him of today was around to warn the him of that day, to say, “Don’t do it, you’ll regret it one day when you’re stuck in a lift”.
He smiled. Maybe he was slowly going crackers. Who did he think he was, Anne Robinson? Even if it wasn’t real leather, did it really matter? He didn’t like this topic, so he tried to change it. He tried to think of that song again. He couldn’t.
“Hurry up” he whispered, leaning his bead right back onto the wooden panel. His boredom was gradually turning to frustration. His hand turned to fists and lightly beat his legs. First they hit simultaneously, then one after the other. His head swayed from side to side and a vague tune emitted from his lips. His hand movements became a beat. Then it stopped. I am behaving oddly, he thought, and he was bored again.
But there was a noise. He was sure of it. A clicking sound. Yes, there were more noises now, footsteps and voices. They gradually became louder; it sounded like just two people walking down a corridor having a conversation. Robert thought he could pick out bits of it – one of them said “You just fill it in”, and then the second said “But what about the moose?” but that couldn’t be right. They were both male from the sound of it.
Robert realised he’d missed his chance to say “Help”. He gasped and punched the floor. He hurt his hand. Anyway, it probably didn’t even stop at this floor, he consoled himself. No, of course it stops at this floor, he thought, they stop at every floor, it would stupid not to. But where were his crack rescue team coming to save him after being alerted by the alarm button? He shouldn’t have to bloody scream his own way out. “OH COME ON!” he shouted, his frustration gradually turning to anger.
He got up and mashed the buttons again. It maddened him that nothing happened, even though previous attempts showed the same results. He aggressively pulled back the sleeves of his jacket and shirt to look at his watch. He was almost twenty-five minutes late. Twenty-five! He had, up to now, had an impeccable punctuality record, and even though he had a good excuse he didn’t want to put that in jeopardy.
It was a very small lift, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t really noticed at first. He realised he was lightly sweating under the collar. Nothing for it, he thought. I’ll have to play Bruce Willis. He jumped and tried to punch the panel above him. He got it, amazingly, but it only hovered slightly, one side remaining in its casing the whole time. Another method was needed. He backed into the corner, and tried to stand on the thin wooden panels protruding from the sides. This took quite a few minutes, but eventually he did it, and recognizing that he would soon lose his footing he dived up into the ceiling, fist first. To his great surprise, upon landing, he saw that one of the panels had actually toppled over, and was now on the other side of the ceiling. Great. His ticket to freedom, right here. He managed to regain his position on the boards, although he struggled more this time as he was becoming more frantic to escape. Again, he dove straight away, and by luck or otherwise got a grip with both hands on the edges of the hole.
As his hands connected, he was able to see into the virtual pitch blackness of the lift tunnel. At that moment he discovered his plan’s fatal flaw – even if he did get into the lift shaft, what good would it do him? Same predicament, only darker, he thought. The problem was that at that moment he didn’t actually have time to think, due to his forward momentum. This cause his legs to swing way out in front of him, and a combination of this, sweaty fingertips, and a sudden thought at an inopportune moment cause him to lose his grip. He sailed through the air almost horizontally, his head and lower back connecting with the floor, and then…
…was I unconscious? he thought. He’d never been unconscious before, so he didn’t really know. He remembered a pain, a pain which was still there now, only nowhere near as intense as he remembered it. He turned his head – his briefcase was still there. At least no one had been in, he thought. He breathed a sigh of relief, more so for his briefcase than his well being. Why did I do that? I could have been killed! But he was okay now, and that was the main thing. He was a lot calmer than before.
He brought his arm up to his head. Almost an hour late! I must have blacked out then, I suppose.
Quite unexpectedly, there was a series of small, odd noises, followed by the restarting of the whirring noise. Hallelujah! Never had Robert been so pleased to hear such a monotonous sound. He stood up, realizing that he would soon have to face the outside world again, and that he needed to get to work. As smoothly as when he walked in, he straightened his jacket, picked up his briefcase and faced the door.
I wonder if this happens to a lot of people, he thought.
--------------------------
The whirring noise slowly stopped. Robert listened to it carefully and thoughtfully without moving. He still had his briefcase in his right hand.
“Hmm,” he said, looking upwards. It was a fairly bare interior, not particularly astonishing. He turned around, as if there would be anything but a blank wall behind him. “Hmm…”
Nothing appeared to be happening, so he pressed one of the buttons. The lift still refused to move. So he pressed it again. Still nothing. There was an alarm button set aside from the others, but he decided against it. After all, he thought, it’s not exactly an emergency. It could get going again any minute. And there’s still about ten minutes left before I’m late.
So he stood back, still holding his briefcase, and blew air through his lips in the way people only do on their own. A tune from the morning’s radio surfaced in his head, and he started to hum along. He couldn’t quite place it, although from his recollection it sounded quite good. It was at this time that he realized he hadn’t bought a record in ages. And even then it was probably some “Greatest Hits” of some artist who he vaguely liked in the past. Yep, I’m boring, he decided. He wondered when it had happened. Was it something you grew into, like a sweater from an elderly relative, or more of an overnight occurrence?
Who cares? If he wants to be boring he can be. But he didn’t want to be. The individual aspects of his life seems okay, but the general message was…well, dull. That’s what his kids would have said. If he had any. Do I regret it? He wondered. His life certainly wouldn’t be the same as it is now. He wouldn’t be as far up the company ladder, more than likely. Hah, babies crying day and night, he’d probably get demoted.
But did that really matter? Sure, he had the big TV, a large collection of literature (and time to read it), and could afford to eat out nearly every night of the week, but where did it get him? What was a big TV with no on to watch it with?
He suddenly felt very depressed. He sat down on the floor, despite it not being the cleanest, and leaned against the wall. For the first time he released his briefcase, standing it upright, against the wall as he was. He checked his watch – an expensive one, he noted for the first time. Now there was only two and a half minutes left. He’d been thinking for longer than he had realised.
Once again air was ejected from his lips in the same manner. Sod it, he thought. He painfully stood up and pressed the red alarm button.
“Well that was a lot of use” he said aloud. He couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to make a noise or not. There were no helpful signs anywhere that lit up with, “Calm down, help is on its way”, or even “We acknowledge that you have pressed this alarm”. So he stood around, and in the usual futile way that people do, pressed more buttons.
"Oh, damn” he sighed, looking skyward (or more accurately ceiling-ward). He realised that he had just spoken out loud when no one else was in the room. It’s the first sign of madness, or so people say. Am I going mad? He pondered the situation. First boring, now mad in less than – he consulted the watch – nine minutes fifty seconds. If I am mad, he thought, I don’t seem to be acting it. I think I’m fairly calm, I’m certainly not one of those psychotics you see on TV. The thought comforted him. If he was one of those he would probably have tried to tear the place apart by now. Claustrophobic as well, most of them.
Then Robert had one of those moments people have. For a few seconds he stood still, stared at a point on the floor and thought nothing, as if his brain were taking a stock check. Another look at the ceiling revealed that there wasn’t a readily available escape route. The panels looked pretty well fixed together, although it was probably easy to remove them. They did it all the time in films. And besides, he wouldn’t be able to get up there anyway without something to stand on. He could touch the panels if he tried., but his upper body strength alone wouldn’t be enough to get him through. The gym membership was another thing he hardly used. They should provide stools in these things.
He sat down at his usual place. “Aargh”. He was bored. He didn’t like being bored, because when he was bored he started to think. And sometime he didn’t like to think. Because sometimes he thought too much.
His eyes turned to his briefcase. It had two locks, both requiring a three digit “password” from the revolving numbers at the side. At this moment he found it insecure. Anyone could get in and have access to everything with just one lucky guess. “I ought to upgrade” was his way of dealing with the problem. What was the next step up? Surely fingerprinting and voice recognition weren’t readily available. And if they were they’d be thousands, way too much to spend on a briefcase. Although you can’t put a price on security and peace of mind. He was starting to sound like a life insurance advert. When you think about it, he thought, your standard briefcase hasn’t changed for quite a while. It’s simple, inexpensive and fairly effective – but someone could easily take a crowbar – oh God, I really am boring.
It was a nice briefcase though – black, and real leather. The locks looked like real gold, although he couldn’t be sure. It was bought for him by a relative. He couldn’t really remember which one; probably an auntie. In truth, he’d had to replace it because it had somehow got damaged. He suspected he’d bought a better model. He’d even compared them once, and he was sure the original was just the slightest shade towards navy blue. He regretted comparing them now. He wished that the him of today was around to warn the him of that day, to say, “Don’t do it, you’ll regret it one day when you’re stuck in a lift”.
He smiled. Maybe he was slowly going crackers. Who did he think he was, Anne Robinson? Even if it wasn’t real leather, did it really matter? He didn’t like this topic, so he tried to change it. He tried to think of that song again. He couldn’t.
“Hurry up” he whispered, leaning his bead right back onto the wooden panel. His boredom was gradually turning to frustration. His hand turned to fists and lightly beat his legs. First they hit simultaneously, then one after the other. His head swayed from side to side and a vague tune emitted from his lips. His hand movements became a beat. Then it stopped. I am behaving oddly, he thought, and he was bored again.
But there was a noise. He was sure of it. A clicking sound. Yes, there were more noises now, footsteps and voices. They gradually became louder; it sounded like just two people walking down a corridor having a conversation. Robert thought he could pick out bits of it – one of them said “You just fill it in”, and then the second said “But what about the moose?” but that couldn’t be right. They were both male from the sound of it.
Robert realised he’d missed his chance to say “Help”. He gasped and punched the floor. He hurt his hand. Anyway, it probably didn’t even stop at this floor, he consoled himself. No, of course it stops at this floor, he thought, they stop at every floor, it would stupid not to. But where were his crack rescue team coming to save him after being alerted by the alarm button? He shouldn’t have to bloody scream his own way out. “OH COME ON!” he shouted, his frustration gradually turning to anger.
He got up and mashed the buttons again. It maddened him that nothing happened, even though previous attempts showed the same results. He aggressively pulled back the sleeves of his jacket and shirt to look at his watch. He was almost twenty-five minutes late. Twenty-five! He had, up to now, had an impeccable punctuality record, and even though he had a good excuse he didn’t want to put that in jeopardy.
It was a very small lift, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t really noticed at first. He realised he was lightly sweating under the collar. Nothing for it, he thought. I’ll have to play Bruce Willis. He jumped and tried to punch the panel above him. He got it, amazingly, but it only hovered slightly, one side remaining in its casing the whole time. Another method was needed. He backed into the corner, and tried to stand on the thin wooden panels protruding from the sides. This took quite a few minutes, but eventually he did it, and recognizing that he would soon lose his footing he dived up into the ceiling, fist first. To his great surprise, upon landing, he saw that one of the panels had actually toppled over, and was now on the other side of the ceiling. Great. His ticket to freedom, right here. He managed to regain his position on the boards, although he struggled more this time as he was becoming more frantic to escape. Again, he dove straight away, and by luck or otherwise got a grip with both hands on the edges of the hole.
As his hands connected, he was able to see into the virtual pitch blackness of the lift tunnel. At that moment he discovered his plan’s fatal flaw – even if he did get into the lift shaft, what good would it do him? Same predicament, only darker, he thought. The problem was that at that moment he didn’t actually have time to think, due to his forward momentum. This cause his legs to swing way out in front of him, and a combination of this, sweaty fingertips, and a sudden thought at an inopportune moment cause him to lose his grip. He sailed through the air almost horizontally, his head and lower back connecting with the floor, and then…
…was I unconscious? he thought. He’d never been unconscious before, so he didn’t really know. He remembered a pain, a pain which was still there now, only nowhere near as intense as he remembered it. He turned his head – his briefcase was still there. At least no one had been in, he thought. He breathed a sigh of relief, more so for his briefcase than his well being. Why did I do that? I could have been killed! But he was okay now, and that was the main thing. He was a lot calmer than before.
He brought his arm up to his head. Almost an hour late! I must have blacked out then, I suppose.
Quite unexpectedly, there was a series of small, odd noises, followed by the restarting of the whirring noise. Hallelujah! Never had Robert been so pleased to hear such a monotonous sound. He stood up, realizing that he would soon have to face the outside world again, and that he needed to get to work. As smoothly as when he walked in, he straightened his jacket, picked up his briefcase and faced the door.
I wonder if this happens to a lot of people, he thought.
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Yep, ANOTHER short story. Although my first. I was given teh topic in the title (and subsequently passed it on to Meka), and this sprang into my mind. It's about 2000 words or something.....I dunno. Read it. If you like it great. If you don't, you'll know not to read any others. Enjoy.
--------------------------
The whirring noise slowly stopped. Robert listened to it carefully and thoughtfully without moving. He still had his briefcase in his right hand.
“Hmm,” he said, looking upwards. It was a fairly bare interior, not particularly astonishing. He turned around, as if there would be anything but a blank wall behind him. “Hmm…”
Nothing appeared to be happening, so he pressed one of the buttons. The lift still refused to move. So he pressed it again. Still nothing. There was an alarm button set aside from the others, but he decided against it. After all, he thought, it’s not exactly an emergency. It could get going again any minute. And there’s still about ten minutes left before I’m late.
So he stood back, still holding his briefcase, and blew air through his lips in the way people only do on their own. A tune from the morning’s radio surfaced in his head, and he started to hum along. He couldn’t quite place it, although from his recollection it sounded quite good. It was at this time that he realized he hadn’t bought a record in ages. And even then it was probably some “Greatest Hits” of some artist who he vaguely liked in the past. Yep, I’m boring, he decided. He wondered when it had happened. Was it something you grew into, like a sweater from an elderly relative, or more of an overnight occurrence?
Who cares? If he wants to be boring he can be. But he didn’t want to be. The individual aspects of his life seems okay, but the general message was…well, dull. That’s what his kids would have said. If he had any. Do I regret it? He wondered. His life certainly wouldn’t be the same as it is now. He wouldn’t be as far up the company ladder, more than likely. Hah, babies crying day and night, he’d probably get demoted.
But did that really matter? Sure, he had the big TV, a large collection of literature (and time to read it), and could afford to eat out nearly every night of the week, but where did it get him? What was a big TV with no on to watch it with?
He suddenly felt very depressed. He sat down on the floor, despite it not being the cleanest, and leaned against the wall. For the first time he released his briefcase, standing it upright, against the wall as he was. He checked his watch – an expensive one, he noted for the first time. Now there was only two and a half minutes left. He’d been thinking for longer than he had realised.
Once again air was ejected from his lips in the same manner. Sod it, he thought. He painfully stood up and pressed the red alarm button.
“Well that was a lot of use” he said aloud. He couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to make a noise or not. There were no helpful signs anywhere that lit up with, “Calm down, help is on its way”, or even “We acknowledge that you have pressed this alarm”. So he stood around, and in the usual futile way that people do, pressed more buttons.
"Oh, damn” he sighed, looking skyward (or more accurately ceiling-ward). He realised that he had just spoken out loud when no one else was in the room. It’s the first sign of madness, or so people say. Am I going mad? He pondered the situation. First boring, now mad in less than – he consulted the watch – nine minutes fifty seconds. If I am mad, he thought, I don’t seem to be acting it. I think I’m fairly calm, I’m certainly not one of those psychotics you see on TV. The thought comforted him. If he was one of those he would probably have tried to tear the place apart by now. Claustrophobic as well, most of them.
Then Robert had one of those moments people have. For a few seconds he stood still, stared at a point on the floor and thought nothing, as if his brain were taking a stock check. Another look at the ceiling revealed that there wasn’t a readily available escape route. The panels looked pretty well fixed together, although it was probably easy to remove them. They did it all the time in films. And besides, he wouldn’t be able to get up there anyway without something to stand on. He could touch the panels if he tried., but his upper body strength alone wouldn’t be enough to get him through. The gym membership was another thing he hardly used. They should provide stools in these things.
He sat down at his usual place. “Aargh”. He was bored. He didn’t like being bored, because when he was bored he started to think. And sometime he didn’t like to think. Because sometimes he thought too much.
His eyes turned to his briefcase. It had two locks, both requiring a three digit “password” from the revolving numbers at the side. At this moment he found it insecure. Anyone could get in and have access to everything with just one lucky guess. “I ought to upgrade” was his way of dealing with the problem. What was the next step up? Surely fingerprinting and voice recognition weren’t readily available. And if they were they’d be thousands, way too much to spend on a briefcase. Although you can’t put a price on security and peace of mind. He was starting to sound like a life insurance advert. When you think about it, he thought, your standard briefcase hasn’t changed for quite a while. It’s simple, inexpensive and fairly effective – but someone could easily take a crowbar – oh God, I really am boring.
It was a nice briefcase though – black, and real leather. The locks looked like real gold, although he couldn’t be sure. It was bought for him by a relative. He couldn’t really remember which one; probably an auntie. In truth, he’d had to replace it because it had somehow got damaged. He suspected he’d bought a better model. He’d even compared them once, and he was sure the original was just the slightest shade towards navy blue. He regretted comparing them now. He wished that the him of today was around to warn the him of that day, to say, “Don’t do it, you’ll regret it one day when you’re stuck in a lift”.
He smiled. Maybe he was slowly going crackers. Who did he think he was, Anne Robinson? Even if it wasn’t real leather, did it really matter? He didn’t like this topic, so he tried to change it. He tried to think of that song again. He couldn’t.
“Hurry up” he whispered, leaning his bead right back onto the wooden panel. His boredom was gradually turning to frustration. His hand turned to fists and lightly beat his legs. First they hit simultaneously, then one after the other. His head swayed from side to side and a vague tune emitted from his lips. His hand movements became a beat. Then it stopped. I am behaving oddly, he thought, and he was bored again.
But there was a noise. He was sure of it. A clicking sound. Yes, there were more noises now, footsteps and voices. They gradually became louder; it sounded like just two people walking down a corridor having a conversation. Robert thought he could pick out bits of it – one of them said “You just fill it in”, and then the second said “But what about the moose?” but that couldn’t be right. They were both male from the sound of it.
Robert realised he’d missed his chance to say “Help”. He gasped and punched the floor. He hurt his hand. Anyway, it probably didn’t even stop at this floor, he consoled himself. No, of course it stops at this floor, he thought, they stop at every floor, it would stupid not to. But where were his crack rescue team coming to save him after being alerted by the alarm button? He shouldn’t have to bloody scream his own way out. “OH COME ON!” he shouted, his frustration gradually turning to anger.
He got up and mashed the buttons again. It maddened him that nothing happened, even though previous attempts showed the same results. He aggressively pulled back the sleeves of his jacket and shirt to look at his watch. He was almost twenty-five minutes late. Twenty-five! He had, up to now, had an impeccable punctuality record, and even though he had a good excuse he didn’t want to put that in jeopardy.
It was a very small lift, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t really noticed at first. He realised he was lightly sweating under the collar. Nothing for it, he thought. I’ll have to play Bruce Willis. He jumped and tried to punch the panel above him. He got it, amazingly, but it only hovered slightly, one side remaining in its casing the whole time. Another method was needed. He backed into the corner, and tried to stand on the thin wooden panels protruding from the sides. This took quite a few minutes, but eventually he did it, and recognizing that he would soon lose his footing he dived up into the ceiling, fist first. To his great surprise, upon landing, he saw that one of the panels had actually toppled over, and was now on the other side of the ceiling. Great. His ticket to freedom, right here. He managed to regain his position on the boards, although he struggled more this time as he was becoming more frantic to escape. Again, he dove straight away, and by luck or otherwise got a grip with both hands on the edges of the hole.
As his hands connected, he was able to see into the virtual pitch blackness of the lift tunnel. At that moment he discovered his plan’s fatal flaw – even if he did get into the lift shaft, what good would it do him? Same predicament, only darker, he thought. The problem was that at that moment he didn’t actually have time to think, due to his forward momentum. This cause his legs to swing way out in front of him, and a combination of this, sweaty fingertips, and a sudden thought at an inopportune moment cause him to lose his grip. He sailed through the air almost horizontally, his head and lower back connecting with the floor, and then…
…was I unconscious? he thought. He’d never been unconscious before, so he didn’t really know. He remembered a pain, a pain which was still there now, only nowhere near as intense as he remembered it. He turned his head – his briefcase was still there. At least no one had been in, he thought. He breathed a sigh of relief, more so for his briefcase than his well being. Why did I do that? I could have been killed! But he was okay now, and that was the main thing. He was a lot calmer than before.
He brought his arm up to his head. Almost an hour late! I must have blacked out then, I suppose.
Quite unexpectedly, there was a series of small, odd noises, followed by the restarting of the whirring noise. Hallelujah! Never had Robert been so pleased to hear such a monotonous sound. He stood up, realizing that he would soon have to face the outside world again, and that he needed to get to work. As smoothly as when he walked in, he straightened his jacket, picked up his briefcase and faced the door.
I wonder if this happens to a lot of people, he thought.
--------------------------
The whirring noise slowly stopped. Robert listened to it carefully and thoughtfully without moving. He still had his briefcase in his right hand.
“Hmm,” he said, looking upwards. It was a fairly bare interior, not particularly astonishing. He turned around, as if there would be anything but a blank wall behind him. “Hmm…”
Nothing appeared to be happening, so he pressed one of the buttons. The lift still refused to move. So he pressed it again. Still nothing. There was an alarm button set aside from the others, but he decided against it. After all, he thought, it’s not exactly an emergency. It could get going again any minute. And there’s still about ten minutes left before I’m late.
So he stood back, still holding his briefcase, and blew air through his lips in the way people only do on their own. A tune from the morning’s radio surfaced in his head, and he started to hum along. He couldn’t quite place it, although from his recollection it sounded quite good. It was at this time that he realized he hadn’t bought a record in ages. And even then it was probably some “Greatest Hits” of some artist who he vaguely liked in the past. Yep, I’m boring, he decided. He wondered when it had happened. Was it something you grew into, like a sweater from an elderly relative, or more of an overnight occurrence?
Who cares? If he wants to be boring he can be. But he didn’t want to be. The individual aspects of his life seems okay, but the general message was…well, dull. That’s what his kids would have said. If he had any. Do I regret it? He wondered. His life certainly wouldn’t be the same as it is now. He wouldn’t be as far up the company ladder, more than likely. Hah, babies crying day and night, he’d probably get demoted.
But did that really matter? Sure, he had the big TV, a large collection of literature (and time to read it), and could afford to eat out nearly every night of the week, but where did it get him? What was a big TV with no on to watch it with?
He suddenly felt very depressed. He sat down on the floor, despite it not being the cleanest, and leaned against the wall. For the first time he released his briefcase, standing it upright, against the wall as he was. He checked his watch – an expensive one, he noted for the first time. Now there was only two and a half minutes left. He’d been thinking for longer than he had realised.
Once again air was ejected from his lips in the same manner. Sod it, he thought. He painfully stood up and pressed the red alarm button.
“Well that was a lot of use” he said aloud. He couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to make a noise or not. There were no helpful signs anywhere that lit up with, “Calm down, help is on its way”, or even “We acknowledge that you have pressed this alarm”. So he stood around, and in the usual futile way that people do, pressed more buttons.
"Oh, damn” he sighed, looking skyward (or more accurately ceiling-ward). He realised that he had just spoken out loud when no one else was in the room. It’s the first sign of madness, or so people say. Am I going mad? He pondered the situation. First boring, now mad in less than – he consulted the watch – nine minutes fifty seconds. If I am mad, he thought, I don’t seem to be acting it. I think I’m fairly calm, I’m certainly not one of those psychotics you see on TV. The thought comforted him. If he was one of those he would probably have tried to tear the place apart by now. Claustrophobic as well, most of them.
Then Robert had one of those moments people have. For a few seconds he stood still, stared at a point on the floor and thought nothing, as if his brain were taking a stock check. Another look at the ceiling revealed that there wasn’t a readily available escape route. The panels looked pretty well fixed together, although it was probably easy to remove them. They did it all the time in films. And besides, he wouldn’t be able to get up there anyway without something to stand on. He could touch the panels if he tried., but his upper body strength alone wouldn’t be enough to get him through. The gym membership was another thing he hardly used. They should provide stools in these things.
He sat down at his usual place. “Aargh”. He was bored. He didn’t like being bored, because when he was bored he started to think. And sometime he didn’t like to think. Because sometimes he thought too much.
His eyes turned to his briefcase. It had two locks, both requiring a three digit “password” from the revolving numbers at the side. At this moment he found it insecure. Anyone could get in and have access to everything with just one lucky guess. “I ought to upgrade” was his way of dealing with the problem. What was the next step up? Surely fingerprinting and voice recognition weren’t readily available. And if they were they’d be thousands, way too much to spend on a briefcase. Although you can’t put a price on security and peace of mind. He was starting to sound like a life insurance advert. When you think about it, he thought, your standard briefcase hasn’t changed for quite a while. It’s simple, inexpensive and fairly effective – but someone could easily take a crowbar – oh God, I really am boring.
It was a nice briefcase though – black, and real leather. The locks looked like real gold, although he couldn’t be sure. It was bought for him by a relative. He couldn’t really remember which one; probably an auntie. In truth, he’d had to replace it because it had somehow got damaged. He suspected he’d bought a better model. He’d even compared them once, and he was sure the original was just the slightest shade towards navy blue. He regretted comparing them now. He wished that the him of today was around to warn the him of that day, to say, “Don’t do it, you’ll regret it one day when you’re stuck in a lift”.
He smiled. Maybe he was slowly going crackers. Who did he think he was, Anne Robinson? Even if it wasn’t real leather, did it really matter? He didn’t like this topic, so he tried to change it. He tried to think of that song again. He couldn’t.
“Hurry up” he whispered, leaning his bead right back onto the wooden panel. His boredom was gradually turning to frustration. His hand turned to fists and lightly beat his legs. First they hit simultaneously, then one after the other. His head swayed from side to side and a vague tune emitted from his lips. His hand movements became a beat. Then it stopped. I am behaving oddly, he thought, and he was bored again.
But there was a noise. He was sure of it. A clicking sound. Yes, there were more noises now, footsteps and voices. They gradually became louder; it sounded like just two people walking down a corridor having a conversation. Robert thought he could pick out bits of it – one of them said “You just fill it in”, and then the second said “But what about the moose?” but that couldn’t be right. They were both male from the sound of it.
Robert realised he’d missed his chance to say “Help”. He gasped and punched the floor. He hurt his hand. Anyway, it probably didn’t even stop at this floor, he consoled himself. No, of course it stops at this floor, he thought, they stop at every floor, it would stupid not to. But where were his crack rescue team coming to save him after being alerted by the alarm button? He shouldn’t have to bloody scream his own way out. “OH COME ON!” he shouted, his frustration gradually turning to anger.
He got up and mashed the buttons again. It maddened him that nothing happened, even though previous attempts showed the same results. He aggressively pulled back the sleeves of his jacket and shirt to look at his watch. He was almost twenty-five minutes late. Twenty-five! He had, up to now, had an impeccable punctuality record, and even though he had a good excuse he didn’t want to put that in jeopardy.
It was a very small lift, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t really noticed at first. He realised he was lightly sweating under the collar. Nothing for it, he thought. I’ll have to play Bruce Willis. He jumped and tried to punch the panel above him. He got it, amazingly, but it only hovered slightly, one side remaining in its casing the whole time. Another method was needed. He backed into the corner, and tried to stand on the thin wooden panels protruding from the sides. This took quite a few minutes, but eventually he did it, and recognizing that he would soon lose his footing he dived up into the ceiling, fist first. To his great surprise, upon landing, he saw that one of the panels had actually toppled over, and was now on the other side of the ceiling. Great. His ticket to freedom, right here. He managed to regain his position on the boards, although he struggled more this time as he was becoming more frantic to escape. Again, he dove straight away, and by luck or otherwise got a grip with both hands on the edges of the hole.
As his hands connected, he was able to see into the virtual pitch blackness of the lift tunnel. At that moment he discovered his plan’s fatal flaw – even if he did get into the lift shaft, what good would it do him? Same predicament, only darker, he thought. The problem was that at that moment he didn’t actually have time to think, due to his forward momentum. This cause his legs to swing way out in front of him, and a combination of this, sweaty fingertips, and a sudden thought at an inopportune moment cause him to lose his grip. He sailed through the air almost horizontally, his head and lower back connecting with the floor, and then…
…was I unconscious? he thought. He’d never been unconscious before, so he didn’t really know. He remembered a pain, a pain which was still there now, only nowhere near as intense as he remembered it. He turned his head – his briefcase was still there. At least no one had been in, he thought. He breathed a sigh of relief, more so for his briefcase than his well being. Why did I do that? I could have been killed! But he was okay now, and that was the main thing. He was a lot calmer than before.
He brought his arm up to his head. Almost an hour late! I must have blacked out then, I suppose.
Quite unexpectedly, there was a series of small, odd noises, followed by the restarting of the whirring noise. Hallelujah! Never had Robert been so pleased to hear such a monotonous sound. He stood up, realizing that he would soon have to face the outside world again, and that he needed to get to work. As smoothly as when he walked in, he straightened his jacket, picked up his briefcase and faced the door.
I wonder if this happens to a lot of people, he thought.
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