The Humble Height

“You stand right in front of me although there’s room on the sides. I appreciate it,” said the woman in the black pencil skirt holding the briefcase.

“Are you talking to me?” retorted a curly-haired man, moving slightly. “I didn’t know you wanted the scenic view—of the gray metal door.”

“Better than your backside,” the woman shot back.

“Stay on; stay on,” a white-haired man whispered. But the woman got off on the fourth floor, and the man exited somewhere before the fortieth.

Tim George reached his office on the 56^th floor and already he could feel the peace. He exhaled as sunlight streamed in the large window and highlighted his now colorful flecked suit and the mural behind him.

“Good morning, Mr. George,” Caroline said. Orchids, tulips, daisies and sunflowers in enameled vases surrounded her desk.

“Good morning, Caroline,” Tim George replied.

“Your 9 o’clock is running late, but they’re on the way, and Mike Stanley wants to meet this afternoon instead of tomorrow.”

“Sounds fine. No problem about meeting Mike today either,” he said.

Tim George went to his office and took off his jacket and shoes and stretched. He wondered how he could draw people to the top floor.

“Caroline,” he called, “why do you want to come to the top floor?”

“Because you pay me to,” she said with a laugh before noticing his face drop. “Because it’s peaceful and beautiful and I have a good boss.”

“Thanks,” Tim George said, smiling before closing his door again.

He knew that if the two people bickering this morning on the elevator would have just risen above their petty fight, and literally rode the elevator to the top floor, they’d be kind to each other—naturally. Maybe they’d even like each other. That was the magic of the top story. 

The next day, Mr. George taped flyers on the elevator and in the lobby for an ice cream social at his office at 1 p.m. Few saw how the pictures on the flyers changed, and fewer would believe it.

But one girl noticed. She rode the elevator three times to the top just to see. Sure enough, the gray ice cream scoops on the flyer turned pink and lavender as the elevator reached the top floors. Other things such as shoes, necklaces, clothes—and people—were brighter, too. 

“Welcome!” Mr. George said, showing visitors around before they made their way into the room with ice cream and streamers.

Caroline saw some people smile with relief as they stepped into the office and she smiled, too, remembering how she felt when she first walked onto the top floor.

Caroline met Mr. George three years earlier at a 10-kilometer race. She was worn out about halfway, and had stopped jogging. That’s when Mr. George ran by and grabbed her hand, encouraging her to keep running. “I’ve beaten cancer and this is my gift to myself,” he told her. “If I can run the whole way, you can, too.”

She ran the rest of the way, and afterward looked for the man who had pulled her along. She found out he was an accountant, and wasn’t hiring then.

Yet Caroline kept calling until Mr. George hired her as a secretary. She left her stressful job and now, hardly ever felt stressed and also felt helpful. Sometimes, though, she worried about the business bottom line.

But Mr. George didn’t worry. He himself bought and served the ice cream because he wanted other to feel peace, and if needed, be able to make peace.

Caroline thought he was too optimistic. Yet she saw strangers meet and hug after getting their ice cream that afternoon. She saw some people looked down to study their hands and clothes as if they were seeing themselves in a new light.

“Is it brighter in here?” one woman asked Caroline.

“Yes, and it’s brighter in here, too,” she said, pointing at her heart.

The woman tilted her head to the side as if she were thinking. “I feel brighter,” she said.

The structure was built more than 100 years earlier, but the blessing of the top floor remained. Mr. George called it the “humble height.” It is said that the top-floor tenant, right after the building was built, prayed with about 100 people for the space to always be peaceful and the occupants to always be humble.

“That’s why people can’t fight here,” Mr. George had explained to Caroline.

Caroline didn’t understand it, but she felt different just stepping into the room. That’s why Mr. George had wanted that man and woman who were bickering yesterday in the elevator to ride to the top so they would have peace with each other.

But people didn’t aimlessly ride elevators often; they needed a place to go. So, Mr. George had a colorful “hello” mural painted with an unveiling party a few years ago. Today he was having the ice cream social.

“I was rude yesterday morning,” said one man under his breath after getting three scoops of pistachio from Mr. George. “I wish I could apologize to her.” It was the young man with the curly hair who exchanged angry words with the woman on the elevator.

Just then, the woman who wore the pencil skirt stepped into the office and dropped her shoulders, soon looking at her hands.

“Nice nail color,” Caroline said.

“Funny thing,” the woman said, “I painted my nails gray. Now they’re rose.”

“It’s happens,” Caroline said, although the woman didn’t hear.

Because right then, the young man with the curly hair had turned from the room with the ice cream and stepped in front of the woman who had worn the pencil skirt. He almost bumped her.

“Sorry,” they both said in unison.

“Second time’s a charm?” the man asked, immediately recognizing her.

The woman felt no hard feelings and said she had not had her coffee yet when she saw him yesterday. “I shouldn’t have been sarcastic,” she said.

“It’s OK. I shouldn’t have been rude,” he said. “Here, I’ll buy you ice cream.”

She laughed. “It’s free!” 

At that time, Mr. George walked to get another container of strawberry ice cream from the freezer. When he saw the man and the woman from the elevator talking kindly, he smiled.