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Going Down
By Vixenrath
I press the button, the light comes on, the motor starts. It’s another typical elevator ride, up and down all day, but today, for me at least, it won’t stop at the third floor. I’ll be getting off at the twenty third floor. My supervisor wanted to se me first thing that morning. Maybe for that promotion that I’ve applied for. The door opened, exposing the cream colored interior, and the regular sight of the same smiling elevator operator. The company executives thought that it would be classy if there was an elevator operator to greet potential clients
“Twenty three.” Is all I mutter as the doors slide shut with a hiss behind me, locking me in with the elevator operator and the cheap elevator music. It’s a very long ride up with the creepy operator that smiled and stared the whole time, and the toneless music. Finally the ride was over and the doors opened with a ring from a bell recording. A real bell was too old-fashion for the company. I checked my watch, smoothed my hair, and down the hall to my supervisor’s office just in time.
He smiles as I open the door. “Sit.” He motions to a chair in front of his red mahogany desk. I sit on the hard upholstered chair. It felt very much like a hard shot strait up into the air real fast. “How long have you been working here?” He asks as he sits in his much more comfortable chair, and his reflection appeared in the highly polished surface of the desk. “Five, six years?” he continues. I shrug in response. There’s a moment of silence as he kicks something under his desk, and I find myself tracing the wood grain of the desk with my eyes. “You haven’t been performing at the company’s standard lately.” He blurted out suddenly as if he had been trying to put it nicely, but still get it over with. ‘That was blunt.’ Was all I thought. He ducked under his desk, and I found out what he was kicked earlier. He brought up a box with some pictures and a plac. “I’ve taken the liberty of cleaning out your desk for you.” Accompanied the box that slid over the waxed surface, “Sorry, but I guess that this will be your last elevator ride down. In this building anyway.” He smiled as he walked around the desk, and opened the door. Numbly, I stand up, pick up my box, and walk out the door, which slammed shut behind me. Just at that moment, the elevator door opened.
I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t even tell the elevator operator that I wanted the lobby as I entered and the doors shut. We didn’t move as I went over the ten minute lay-off in my head a little slower, and a defense in my favor. The lights went out as I heard a popping sound above the elevator. The battery reserve red emergency lights turned on as a metallic twanging sound reached my ears. The white uniform of the elevator operator was stained blood red light, and glowed in a surreal truth.
There were more popping and twanging sounds as the elevator operator looked at me and smiled with his crimson lighted teeth. I compared the blinding white teeth of the ride up, with the scarlet incisors of now. I stared constantly at them as the alien sounds above continued. Suddenly, they stopped. The red teeth parted as the creepy elevator operator said, “Going down?”
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Going Down?, one shot - comments loved!
