Going Up?

Does plunging to your death once a day qualify as a hypochondria-related condition? I’m not sure it does, because to me, hypochondria is an obsession with health, or lack thereof, not death, but anyway...

It happens to me daily, more specifically, when I’m selected to ride the dreaded, shaky elevator. I work in a twelve-story building. Luckily, my office is on the fourth floor, but unfortunately, that’s still high enough to die if the elevator cable breaks, and it breaks every time I ride the dreaded, shaky elevator.

There are four elevators in the tower; the “one” is the first on the left. As soon as I arrive at work, I’m focused on the elevator, when I enter the building, it’s the elevator as I pass the security counter, the elevator. As I approach, my heart is racing, my palms are sweating and half of my face is numb. I feel the shaking, hear the creaking and sense that death is only footsteps away. I beg the elevator gods to give me one of the three good elevators, but alas, the bell rings and the dreaded, shaky elevator doors slide open inviting me to ride the doomsday express. I pray for unknowing souls to approach the elevator. When they don’t, and my finger is white from pressing the “open door” button, I ride alone.

My breathing quickens and I brace myself against the bars plastered to the wall as the elevator jolts into action. My heart races and my palms sweat as I think of my loved ones and all that I have yet to accomplish, while the elevator moans and shakes it’s way to the fourth floor. Finally, the elevator stops, greeting me with one last abrupt quake signaling my arrival. I’m so anxious, I can barely pry myself from the rail to throw myself onto solid ground as the doors open to grant me another day of tedious work.

It’s my one wish in the morning/afternoon/evening, that I don’t have to journey the death ride alone. I wait in the elevator desperately pressing the “open door” button, for what seems like hours, with a total disregard for my tardiness. I wait for footsteps to approach, silently cheering when they finally emerge, coming to save me from a lonely death.

And then, I rejoice as the person thanks me for holding the elevator, not knowing I’m secretly sealing there fate. With a smile on my face, I ask, “What floor?,” “eleven?” Ha, Poor soul.

Maybe in the far, far, far away future I’ll ride that elevator to the twelfth floor and back as a therapeutic exercise, but that’s way down the road…