Thread of Destiny

Thread of Destiny

           I have always hated elevators. It goes without saying really that being suspended in a metal box in an open shaft gave me a distinct feeling of vertigo whenever I was inclined by social pressure to ride in the death traps. I hated the feeling of that little jerk right at the beginning when the cab first started to move and then the counting beeps that signified just how fast the floors were passing by. I hated the little bounce whenever someone got on or off. I hated the way the doors closed and gave that little warning to stand clear. And I hated the stuffy paneling and the little rubber dots on the floor. All an all I just hated elevators.

It was a cloudless and sunny Wednesday afternoon, one of those days that made me long for just a blanket and a book in the park, but I had a job interview.

The place had been on the 12^th floor of some indistinct high-rise that I actually drove past three times before I figured it were to park. I anxiously smoothed my wrinkled blouse and the smooth fabric of my skirt as I stood in line for the elevator.

Twelve floors was just too many to walk up in heels.

I clutched my resume close to my chest and tried to appear like I belonged here. I could see that I didn’t. The people swarming past me were too posh and aloof to be my sort of people. I knew this was going to be a waste of my time, but I was here already. I might as well just answer the questions that all the others had posed and then go home to drown my continuing failure in a bowl of instant mac and cheese.

Don’t judge me.

The door made that annoying chiming noise and I steeled myself to step inside with two other people, both of whom looked like they were applying for the same job I was.

The woman was a smartly dressed brunette who looked older than I was with her pressed jacket and briefcase.

She took the choice spot in the elevator right beside the buttons and close enough to the door to be the first one out.

The man had a kinder face with lines drawn in to the corners of his eyes and hair that was just on this side of untidy. He offered me a small smile as I stepped in behind him and positioned myself against the opposite wall. His fingers were trembling slightly as he drummed them silently across his slightly shabbier briefcase. He looked uncomfortable in his tie and kept rolling his neck from side to side.

The woman was not trying to hide her distasteful looks in his direction as the elevator starting up, counting the floors with sickening tones.

I had my hand clenched into the fabric of my sweater, my fingers fiddling with the bottom button.

I was ready for it to be over when everything starting shaking violently. The brunette started to scream and I was thrown to the ground. The man’s briefcase smacked my across the face and smashed open on the floor. Paper exploded around me and I threw up my arms.

It stopped, the lights flickered once and died.

“Damn.” The man swore into the blackness. His face was close to mine, his voice almost shouting in my ear.

The woman was still screaming, her voice bouncing around in the pitch. “We’re going to die. Oh my god we are going to die!”

“Will you shut up!” the man’s voice was harsh as he moved away from me and I managed to scramble backwards and put my back against the wall.

The emergency lights flared up casting the scene into a hellish red glow. The man was standing now. There was a gash bleeding freely on his cheek. His eyes were wild.

The elevator creaked disconcertingly and the brunette whimpered.

Her hair had come loose and hung in lank strips around her face, she had her briefcase clutched tightly to her chest and was rocking back and forth slowly against the far wall. There were tears on her face.

I watched the man stride to the emergency telephone and pull it out. He held the receiver to his mouth and spoke into it. “Hello?”

I studied his face, blood was dripping onto his collar. He wiped at it absently as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the line.

“Yes. Three are three of us. We are trapped in the elevator. The power is out.”

A pause and he frowned. My head was throbbing where the briefcase had impacted my temple.

The elevator groaned again and the brunette whimpered louder, rocking harder.

“I understand.” His voice was clipped as he hung up the phone. He set it back in its cradle and turned to look at us.

“Well it’s going to be a while. That earthquake was a 5.8, there is a lot of power lines down and a couple of buildings collapsed. Turns out we’re lucky not to be squashed right now.” He slide down the doors. “I’m Garett by the way.”

“Morta.” I said holding out my hand. We shook hands.

The brunette sniffled, “Kayla.”

We sat in silence for a while then.

“So were you both here for the job?” I asked.

Kayla just jerked her head, but Garett laughed.

“Funny isn’t it? I woke up this morning thinking that I’d do this one thing and then go back to playing catch-up on the yardwork my wife keeps nagging me about. In today’s economy when they bite you yank the line taught. They say jump you say how high.” His laugh turned bitter. “Here we are three strangers bound by circumstance to be adversaries, hung in a metal box by a thread. I think there has to be a pun about destiny in there somewhere.”

“I don’t believe in destiny.” Kayla tossed her hair.

“No? Why not?” I asked.

“Well its stupid isn’t it? To think that your life is preordained or whatever. Stuff happens because of action and reaction. People do things because other things happened to them.”

I brushed my own hair out of my face as Garett turned thoughtful, “In college I had a professor who swore up and down that the reason people believed or didn’t believe in destiny was because they wanted someone to blame for how very ordinary their lives were. The man who believed in destiny thought surely that if he were designed for greatness then he would be great. The man who considered his own fate thought that surely if he wanted to be great there was nothing stopping him.”

I snorted, “They were lazy you mean.”

Garett’s eyes sparked and a smile quirked his lips, “Perhaps.”

The elevator creaked again and the emergency light winked for just a moment.

Kayla was picking at her fake nails compulsively and I shifted my legs to keep them from falling asleep.

“Do you really think that we were all meant to be here today?” I asked suddenly. Garett looked up from his fingers.

“Did you really think you had a good shot of getting his job?”

I flinched as his words stung me. “I…well…”

Garett waved me off, “It’s like I said before when they call you, you show up. It really doesn’t matter what the job is as long as it pays well enough and come with health insurance. Can you honestly tell me that you would rather come to an office every day and work for someone who barely remembers your name for the next thirty years until you retire and realize that you wasted the best years of your life making someone else money.”

“Why are you so bitter? No one is making you apply for this stuff.” Kayla smarted.

Garett sighed, “Really? Let me ask you something, if you said to your landlord that you weren’t going to pay rent because you didn’t have a job, do you think he’d be okay with that.”

“No, but…”

“It isn’t that there is someone who makes you work for someone else, it’s that you make yourself do it because you know that the consequences of not doing it are harder to bare.”

“So where does destiny come in?” I asked sitting up straighter.

“Ah destiny. When we think of destiny we think some grand adventure or heroic actions. We think that people with destinies will be great, but I pose to you the question of why? Why should all destiny be grand, wouldn’t it be better served to say that most destinies are quiet and subtle. There are hundreds of workers and only one queen, every society works like that. If we were all great then nothing would actually get done.”

“You’re saying that we are destined to be no one?” I picked at a loose thread on my pants and Garett pointed a finger at me.

“Got it on the first try.” He ran his hands through his hair and glanced towards the phone again as the elevator creaked more loudly.

“Then what’s the point in saying you have a destiny at all?” I argued, “if we are all just meant to be no one.”

Garett shrugged, “Who knows maybe you’d turn out to be the queen.”

The elevator screeched loudly and slid down a few inches. Kayla started to mutter a prayer under her breath.

“Somehow I doubt it.” I murmured. I could see the fear on Garett’s face as he offered me a smile. I just felt numb.

The throbbing in my head had stopped and I could hear every heartbeat and every whoosh of breath that came and went into and out of my lungs.

“I heard this story once about the three fates.” Garett started, “It was Greek I think. Anyway the story goes that the first fate is the one who gives you life and starts you on your path, the middle one measures the length and the third…”

“Cuts the cord.” I finished and we stared into each other’s eyes. I reached into the pocket of my sweater and pulled out a pair of scissors.

The cable sang as it snapped.

The climb to heaven is long and hard, the fall to hell is swift and easy.