The Middle Stage

The Elevator wasn’t big by anyone’s standards.  Its dimensions were those of a standard hotel—or perhaps mall—elevator, with the average silver inward-folding door.  Above it were tiny metallic digits symbolizing the number of floors and to the side countless amounts of buttons for one to push and pick a destination.  On an average day one or more button would be lit up and the Elevator’s inhabitants would expect to hear the high-pitched ding. 
         Unfortunately, this was not an average day.
         As a matter of fact, the three current inhabitants of the Elevator were not entirely sure it was a day at all.  Time had eluded them, as well as the rest of the world.  They were left to sit on the Elevator’s red and blue speckled carpeting and contemplate.  Currently, all were contemplating the discomfort of sitting on the carpet, made even less bearable by the fact that they could not recall how they had come to be in the Elevator in the first place.
         Though one had somehow appeared to make his peace with the situation and settled in the Upper Left Corner, curiously stroking a finger along the wall, two were becoming increasingly disturbed by the silence, neither knowing what to say.
         I suppose I should…introduce myself, thought one.
         I could make some obvious comment to start a conversation, thought the second.
      And so, in voices shrill in comparison to the previous void, burst the statements:
      “I’m Jack, and you are…?”
      “So it appears we’re stuck.”
      The two had been uttered simultaneously, thereby making it impossible for either to understand what the other had just said.
This short non-exchange felt incredibly awkward for both, and they spent the following minute surveying the other’s appearance.  Neither found himself impressed.  Jack’s still nameless Elevator-mate stared Jack in the eye, communicating a signal with a squint.  Sure that the man sitting in front of him would not begin to speak, he finally said,
      “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
      “I only said my name’s Jack, and I asked for yours.” explained Jack, groping his left wrist.  He’d discovered the disappearance of his watch ten minutes earlier and still sorely missed it.
    “Cliff.”
    “Like the mean guy from that old book?”
    “Not Heathcliff.  Just Cliff.”
    “Oh.”
    What a bore, thought Cliff, understanding that the man before him would not help him get to the heart of the matter.  Nor was the man currently isolating himself likely to be of assistance.
    “So what was it you said before?” asked Jack.
    “I only mentioned our present lack of movement.  This elevator is obviously stuck.”
    “Then shouldn’t we press the alarm button or somethin’?”
    Cliff had to stifle a sigh.  “If you’d only look at the buttons you’d see how they’re all completely blank.  We have no way of knowing which one is the one we need.  We don’t even know if any of them work.”
  “But then…what floor are we in?  Maybe we could try to pry the door open and jump out if we aren’t too high up.”
  The situation was becoming bleaker for Cliff as his companion’s questions continued to disappoint.  “Again, if you’d only raise your head, you’d see that the numbers of floors seem to go on and on.  In fact, each etching is so small I can’t make any out.  Not one is lit up.  Obviously we have no way of knowing which floor we’re on, and you still haven’t hit on our main predicament.”
  “Which is?” Jack clutched his loose jeans, fingers pressing on his fleshy legs.  He didn’t like the condescending way in which this guy spoke. 
  “Well, somehow I don’t think I’m the only one with no memory of how I got here.  If you’re any better off than I am, do share.  Because right now, all I know is that I’m in an elevator with two strangers, you and Mr. Isolation over there, and am unable to tell time or location.  With a lack of a better explanation, I’d call this being trapped.”
  Jack did his best to rationalize his situation, but to his horror, he came up blank.  Little academic know-it-all shit.
  “That’s what I thought.  What do you say we ask our fellow man there if he can enlighten us?” Without waiting for Jack’s response—which had never been his intention—Cliff looked over to the third man sitting in the Upper Left Corner.  “Hey there, Mr. Isolation, do you know why we’re all here?”
  The third man had been curled up in his Corner for the entire time they had been there, his face turned to the left facing the reflective wall.  He’d been absorbed with the mutilated way in which his face appeared on the wall when he was bothered by Cliff.  Instead of jolting or shifting from his position, as Jack had expected, the man merely shrugged and passed a finger along the wall.
The plane of Cliff’s forehead transformed into a bumpy terrain.  He never let his students get away with answering a question improperly, and he refused to let this insolence pass.
  “A shrug is not an answer.  Good God, man, can’t you see how irritating this situation is?  Who knows how long we could be in here!”
  Maddening Jack and Cliff further, the anonymous man in the Corner erupted in hoarse laughter that sounded painful as it made its way out.
  “You think this is funny, asshole?” Jack joined in, rising up to display his full height and protruding belly.
  The third man’s malicious grin flattened to Jack’s satisfaction.  If Cliff hadn’t been watching him closely, they might have completely missed the slight and telling movement of the man’s thin lips.
  “What was that?” Cliff asked sharply.
  Still whispering yet at slightly higher decibels, he repeated “This is not the afterlife I’d imagined.”
  “Afterlife…” Jack’s lips inched up at the corners as he made a sudden realization.  “Does this guy think he’s dead or something?”
  The third man said nothing, going back to tracing a finger across a section of the wall.  Cliff saw it go from one side of his reflected neck to the other.  Now, not one of them laughed.  Now, not one of them dared to grin.
  Jack sat on the Upper Right Corner as Cliff chose the Lower Left.  Suddenly it seemed important for them to get comfortable.  They had a feeling that the wait before them might be very, very long.