What to Do when Stuck in an Elevator and the Power is Out.

Johnson worked the graveyard shift for the computer company that he worked for. He worked nine to five, but it was night to morning. His company had clients from all over the world, so it was good for their business to have someone they could talk to, and be trained by at all hours of the day and night. There were several companies in the 12 storey office building that he worked in that provided similar service in different areas of business, so he wasn’t alone there, but he certainly felt that he was, on the tenth floor of nowhere, as he liked to call it.

He was a relatively new hire, and he couldn’t afford to quit, he could be replaced by some kind fresh out of college, so he kept dragging his 45 year old self to work every night of the working week (and sometimes Saturdays and Sundays).

Well it was fast approaching five o’clock, and he was ready to go. He always left precisely on the hour, because he knew that early leaving was monitored and taken seriously by administration.

The Five O’Clock Dash (as Johnson sees it)

“It’s time. I’m outta here. Damn, the elevator door is closing. It will take forever to wait for it to go down and come back up again. I can make it if I sprint full speed.”

“There I made it.”

The Hard Reality

           The hard reality was that as soon as Johnson got into the elevator, and the door hat shut there was a power outage. He was in total blackness, and complete silence. He was left bewildered.

Back to Johnson

This is just my luck and my life – dark and dreary. How can I possibly stay calm and wait it out? I’m so freaked out I think that I can hear myself breathing. I don’t think that that has ever happened before. How can I distract myself? I know. I’ll think of women. What good is that? I’m divorced and live alone with not even a plant for company. There are no women in the company that catch my eye, but then I probably don’t catch their eyes either. 

I can hear my breathing again. I’ve got to switch to something else or I will go crazy, make that crazier. I know – sports. No one I cheer for is even any kind of contender. Promises were made in the beginning of the NHL season, but the young guns have turned out to be young stuns, and the two goalies must have been bribed to let so many pucks whiz by them.. 

What else? Music. My cell phone is at home, so there is nothing I can listen to, and I don’t want to keep on hearing my breathing. I know. I’ll think back to when I was a teenager, a kid and sang in a band. And he remembered how his mother, who loved to sing, told him that singing ‘good for what ails you’. So he figured it was time to sing

Johnson Makes a Decision

I definitely think I should sing. Isn’t it just a little crazy to sing by yourself when you are in an elevator and there is no music playing? Normally probably yes, but not when the power is off and you are in a dark elevator, no light in sight, no one near, and you can sometimes hear yourself breathing, just about anything is game.

What to sing? Can’t go wrong starting with the Beatles. What song should I begin with?

I may be a little bit crazy, but I want to sing one of their more romantic songs. I need to take my panic emotions and take them to a different place. 

And So It Begins

So Johnson begins with “Till there was you”. It was a song that he usually sang with the band, so he was familiar with all the words At first his voice was a little rough. He hadn’t spoken out loud for quite some time now, and he did feel nervous, even without an audience. But then his voice smoothed out a bit, and Johnson felt that he had done a good job with it, even though he thought so himself. The problem now was that he could not think of another romantic Beatles song to sing. He wondered what he could sing next.

The Answer

The answer came quickly enough, but it wasn’t anything that his imaginative mind produced. At least he hoped it wasn’t. That would mean that he was having some pretty serious audio hallucinations. Loud and clear, a rather strong but melodic female voice began singing, almost shouting “Yellow Submarine.” There was someone else in the room, a woman. He wondered whether the breathing he had heard was not his, but hers.

           Rather than say anything, he sang along, following the pace that she had set. When they finished, the elevator was filled with the sound of the two of them laughing.

Taking Turns

           Johnson then shouted out “My turn to choose”, and began to sing “Hey Jude.” The female that remained only a sound and not a sight , came in on the second line, about doing something with a sad song. It wasn’t sad when the two of them sang together. When it was her turn again, she shifted from the Beatles, and sang a soulful version of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”. His mother was a big fan of Patsy Cline, so he could sing along. Definitely trying to impress her now, on his next turn he began to sing Patsy Cline’s “Walking after Midnight”, and managed to slip in the words “in an elevator” at the end of several lines. She did too, not necessarily in the same places.

           It went on like this for longer than they could measure time, not talking to each other, but matching each other, song for song, often laughing between songs.

           When the power came back on, Johnson felt a little sad. He could tell from the woman’s face that she could be feeling that way too. Often shy with women, particularly after his separation and divorce, he didn’t usually take the lead with a woman. But this was different, he felt he knew her. When he caught sight of her, he began to sing the Beatles “I want to hold your hand”, which he did. And she held his hand as tightly as he held hers.