Descending

You can tell by the expressions on most of their faces that I’m not supposed to exist anymore. Suitcase in hand, their faces freeze for a moment as the doors slide open and they question their abilities to push a button themselves. To be honest, they’re right. I’m nothing but decoration. A couple decades ago, sure, it made sense to have somebody work the complicated lifts, but modern ones are simple. My position shouldn’t exist. Most of them show disdain for me. I’m the person you have to socially prepare for before entering the elevator, the one who keeps you from talking about the growth on your foot with your family, the one you’re not sure if you should tip (so you don’t). But it’s classy. I’m what keeps up our five-star rating. That, and the golden sheen that covers everything, and the silky sheets, and the old-fashioned uniforms, and the steep price to stay even one night.

All in all, I’m unnecessary. I’m the equivalent of an extremely well-paid conductor in the Thomas the Tank Engine universe.

Since my job is simple enough, it seems like people would beg for it, that it wouldn’t pay so well, but what newcomers quickly realize is that it’s torture. In scratchy clothing, you stand for hours, hearing numbers, pushing buttons, only meeting eyes a couple times per group. Sure, during rush hours, you have more work to do, but the lulls, those’ll get you. Once, I stood for an hour and forty-six minutes, alone in a box, before it jolted to life. I’m not to sit, or leave the elevator. It’s in my contract.

The elevator is mostly wrapped in mirrors, to give the illusion of more space. It doesn’t work when you’re in there for longer than twenty minutes. I’d been compressed for four years now.

I’m usually the last to hear about changes around the hotel, probably due to my isolation, though I suppose that everyone could just hate me. You never know. So, when I walked in one morning a few years back, and the new manager introduced himself at the door, I was so shocked that I forgot to respond. I laughed awkwardly and somehow made it all the way to the elevator before I realized what had just happened. Once inside, I banged my head against the mirrors.

My less-than-ideal first impression won’t be an issue for the day, I thought to myself. Everyone takes the staff elevator. Besides, he probably met hundreds of people that day.

Hours later, when he stepped into the elevator, I nearly died, and when he asked if I was the one who awkwardly laughed, I did die, partially, I think. But his smile was forgiving, and his eyes understanding, and his laugh deflating, so I laughed it off, and introduced myself. Before he told me the floor, he got a phone call. He held up four and three fingers, so I pushed 43 and watched him tell the person on the other end to “just restart the system.” He then hung up, looked around himself, realized he was in an elevator, and shoved his fingers into his brows as the elevator lurched to a stop and the light went off.

An indeterminable amount of time later, he asked why I was still standing. It’s part of the job, I say. He tells me to just sit. After a few more increments of time, we’re talking. He’s new around here, moved hundreds of miles east to get this position, and he doesn’t know anything about the hotel.

“To be fair, neither do I, to be honest. I see what’s just beyond the doors, but not much of anything else. I don’t even see the city anymore. It’s bed, bus, elevator, bus, bed for me.” He told me that sounded sad, and I guess it kind of was.

“I don’t know. My job is being the place between places, so I feel special in at least knowing that I’m the only one in the hotel who sees this elevator as more than just a place between places. It’s a real room, you know. It just moves. And when I look at everyone else’s faces…they don’t get it. It’s more than just a way to get somewhere else. It’s got value itself.”

The elevator listened to my praise and finally jolted to life. The lights came back on, and we realized we were sitting in the same way, lodged between wall and wall, on opposite sides of the elevator. He checked his watch, and said only half an hour had passed.

As we finally arrived on floor 43, he stepped out, then walked back in, and ripped me out of the elevator, telling me to follow him.

That day, and continuing weeks after, he showed me what was beyond those metal jaws that kept me isolated from the world beyond. Once we had figured out every inch of the hotel, from the archive of those horrible stock paintings they hang in hotel rooms to the dumbwaiter that apparently isn’t meant to bear the weight of a fully grown man, he’d stick his hand in the elevator daily, at almost the exact same time, pull me out, and show me the city. He’d take me to parks, concerts, coffee houses, horrifically sweet candy shops — every day, he’d show me what wasn’t reflected in the mirrors of an elevator.

He gave me everything, and in return, well — in return, I gave him nothing. I had nothing to give but myself and what I had learned from staring at four walls for years, and somehow, that was enough for him.

One day, when his hand bent around to pull me out, I tugged back, and we found ourselves in the elevator together. Between the greenish haze that radiates from mirrors that reflect each other infinitely and the golden sheen of the paint, I couldn’t see. I don’t know, and I’ll never know what happened, who made the advance, or what floor we were climbing to, or what time it was — we kissed. And for the first time, I wanted to stay in that elevator.

The next day was the first I’d had in years without the metal doors engraved into my mind’s eye like a camera flash. It was temporary, also like a camera flash.

“Stay home tomorrow — come on, take a risk!” he urged in a playful tone.

But the rest of it wasn’t playful. His smile lines weren’t filled; his eyes focused just past me. It was like talking to myself in the elevator mirror. I nodded blankly, and he stepped out.

I came home uneasy. My mind was cloudy and ashy and reflected by the lingering elevator mirrors and the golden sheen was covered in soot.

I was already taking risks. I was going outside the elevator, I was making connections, I was jumping dozens of feet into piles of laundry — what else did he want?

I woke up late the next day with a jolt in my chest. With a suddenly cleared head, I realized quickly it just wasn’t worth the risk. Unlike everything else I had shared with him, this wasn’t something I had always longed to do. I knew the world beyond the elevator. I now only longed to see the man who showed me it.

So I donned my red uniform, dashed out the door of my apartment, and stood anticlimactically for half an hour as my late bus became officially delayed. I arrived for work late, slipped past the receptionists with averted eyes, and smiled in the elevator. The mirrors reflected that stupid smile that only comes when you realize something you hadn’t noticed before, that involuntary gesture of you clever bastard!

And so I waited in confident anticipation, but when the doors slid open, he didn’t step through. An old couple wanted to be taken to twenty. Then a family wanted the pool, where a guitarist wanted to go to the lobby, where a young boy wanted to go to the top floor, where the same young boy wanted to go back to the lobby, where he again asked to go to the top, and I had to tell him to get out. The elevator had never moved so slowly as that day.

Hours later, I found myself in the middle of the lull. I sat as we had done just days before, pinned between the walls, and the mirrors had nothing to reflect but each other. There I sat for my record time of an hour and forty-six minutes, before the lift jolted to life, descending quickly, as my heart leapt upwards. I could feel it. The mirrors smiled back greenishly, coaxing me on. If I had something to say, this was the time. We neared the lobby with neck-breaking speed, and my legs shook. The doors slipped open, and in he walked, randomly backwards, and looked at me with childishly funny bulging eyes. I laughed, and without hesitating, I whispered, “I lo — ”

Immediately after him walked a woman and a small girl. I looked at him through the mirror, stopped for a moment, nauseant eyes welling up, before choking, “Where to?”

The greenish hue descended upon my eyes like a shroud. I don’t remember what floor they wanted. I remember pushing a button, noticing his ring, and wanting to crash myself against the panes.

He left me a note in my mailbox saying we couldn’t keep it going. It made sense, it really did, and that’s what hurt.

I don’t get emotions. They don’t work the way you want them to. Logic is better, for controlling yourself and handling others, and so he was right — he did what I should’ve done: stayed inside that damn elevator.

Sometimes love isn’t enough to risk it.

December 2018