Just your regular Friday.
Trapped in a poorly lit elevator
with three other strangers.

The only things they have in common are that
they’re all wearing red shoes,
and that they’re all going up.
Everyone is listening to their own music -
a weird mix of
rap, rock, indie and folk
that sounds great played in the same time.

No one knows where they’ll get off the elevator,
at what storey, nor if they’ll take a left or right afterwards.
It’s all a mystery.

The first couple of floors pass easily,
maybe someone even cracks a joke
or makes a funny comment
and they all smile at their mirror reflection.

Suddenly, the elevator clutches between floors
and they get to see their faces for the first time.
They are mesmerized.
Although they have nothing in common besides the red shoes,
They feel as if they are doppelgangers on the inside;

They wake up in each-other’s heads
and it all feels comfortable for a while,
The chairs are cosy and the food is great!

The mirrors disappear and they start to see the world from above.
they realise that there’s no insurance,
and that they’re suspended in mid-air,
half way between the earth and the sky,
a band of unknown,
4 complete strangers,
everyone trying to act cool,
posing for an imaginary sub-genre cover album photo,
that no one will get to listen to.

Minutes pass and they become hours,
sky becomes sea
and clouds vanish.
They get tired of looking out the window
and all the windows look tired of looking out of them.

Someone finds a door and opens it.
He looks at the others, waves, then jumps.
They’ll never know if he drowned,
got burned in the atmosphere or
ended up on the good side
of the freshly buttered toast.


One of the remaining three starts taking selfies,
Smiling at his virtual image,
not being bothered at all
that the image doesn’t smile back,
being convinced that, in this way,
he’s slowly becoming part of a special form of theatre,
with a smiling/sad face construction,
a bipolar bear with
the heart of an eagle.

The second one starts writing nervously on the walls;
endless lines of pathetic reality;
a combination of feelings, lies,
email passwords,
social media security questions
and lots and lots of sophistry…
everything intended to serve as a rock-solid personal legacy
after the elevator’s presumed crash.

The third one gets locked in his own head,
carefully observing all of them,
gazing in the blank,
with his headphones still in his ears,
but with no music on,
no plan in his mind,
no clean underwear,
no purpose at the end of the journey,
no solution,
no answer for any of the police’s questions,
trapped in an elevator
like a great idea in somebody’s head,
in a brain crack situation.

He is all alone,
humming sad chick tunes,
slowly losing his wit and grit.

The elevator walls reappear,
and he is now going up again,
by himself,
slowly,
surrounded by three pairs of red shoes
that were made for walking,
but are now
floating around the universe,
half-way between God and Darwin.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ypofGDdHpo

in and out doors, i go
when the shadows show, i turn
stuck in an elevator, that keeps going up
let me out, bring it to a complete stop
the light seems to follow me
as i seek to find peace
crawling through the snow
rain falls upon my skin
here i go, here i will sleep

Last night I had a hard time.
I was thinking of you before I fell asleep.

And while I was sleeping,
I was dreaming of you.

And in my dream,
We were together.

I held your hand,
You called me "Babe."

It was amazing.
It was a dream come true.

But then in my dream,
You got on an elevator.

So I followed you in,
And turned around.

And you pressed the bottom floor button,
And quickly ran out.

I was trapped in the elevator,
Plummeting to the bottom.

Just like I feared would happen

I waited for an elevator
It was an exceptionally long pause,
And there was a group of three arguing
Over the meaning of a clause.

I knew the answer to their query,
But questioned if I should reply.
Social stigmas can be strange
So I decided to be shy.

They searched their minds,
They racked their brains,
And I just stood there -
The answer boiling on my tongue.

My elevator arrived just then,
And I reluctantly stepped inside.
The doors closed slowly, slowly,
And I heard their voices die...

...So it is with my faith.
Many people are searching
And I have the answer,
But I am too afraid to speak.

So I step inside an elevator,
And lift myself above their problems
Pridefully rejecting the searching
Of those who need an answer.

Much like being trapped in an elevator,
Awaiting your rescue,
Wondering if you should be the one to save yourself,
But you start panicking once the doors wont open,
You feel yourself shrinking,
Drowning in your thoughts,
Internally collapsing from the stress,
You begin to hyperventilate,
But not audibly, no, it's completely silent,
The utter silence itself is deafening,
You question the stability and structure
Of the suspended room that your life is being held in,
Back to the silence, was that a creaking sound
Or are you just starting to become paranoid now,
Is someone on the outside trying to pry the doors open
To help rescue you, and get you out,
Or is someone simply mindlessly hitting the elevator button
Waiting for it to come, though it never will,
Surely they'll become annoyed and just take the stairs,
But how are you supposed to get out of this situation,
This state of complete panic, you start to sob,
And that's when you realize that this is what anxiety feels like.

Claustrophobia confines me
Noise is muted
Time slows down
The sound of my racing heart fills the air
The world turns like a haunted merry-go-round
And my sight blurs
I gulp in stale air
The smell of mass body odour stings my nose
My palms are sweating
Fellow humans beside me turn into snarling aliens
My body shrieks at me to run
But the ground grabs my feet with clawed fingers
Panic is overwhelming common sense
I am losing my mind
A scream slowly rises to my throat
DING
The doors open
One sigh of relief
And my body gratefully flies out into freedom
Never again

: LAST NIGHT—

I watched a ***** internet video;
a man getting halved by an Elevator.
It was a slow process.

     — LISTEN:
I am not really sure if I want
to think about it at the moment— and
I certainly don't want to write it out. That would require me
a stretch of contemplation                                —AND
a reach to be descriptive on my part, or at least
not to be redundant.

No,
In order to tell you about it,
I would really need to Stress the details that
got me: That really human kind of ****, you know?           LIKE:
the expressions on his face, and how closely his step brought him to near freedom—just outside that metal box. Just before it came down hard, and took 50% of the poor ******* with it.

It was the manner in which he got stuck that pushed me There, and
not traditionally.
Think long-ways.
The exact scenario from my nightmare so far back— with a single deviation. Setting.
Of course, inside my twisted anti-fantasy: it was the antagonist was suffering,  also this character I had come to know by name and action.

   ...Anyway that segment shocked me.
And I don't get shocked that often.
It was a sort of fate that I never actually thought I would observe in person. There is always the stopping point when watching gore online and that was mine.

The lift is a truly marvellous creation
It moves people via elevation.