Elevator to Afterlife

The elevator dings open and an old man walks in.

Inside is a young woman of about 30, who cannot keep her bewilderment less obvious upon seeing a new face for the first time in a while.

“Wait!” she tries calling outside when the elevator closes in her face. She turns to the old man. “Excuse me, sir, did anyone out there mention anything about me?”

He watches her move around in total disconcertion. ”No, ” he replies, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. Why, is something the matter?”

The woman sighs in exasperation. “It’s just… When I got here, they said this elevator will take me to either the upper floor or the lower floor; but it’s been days, and I’m still stuck here. I don’t know when this thing’s gonna move.”

“Days?” the old man asks, incredulous. “Could it be a system error?”

“Not that they announce anything.”

The old man peruses the room. “Maybe this thing’s not working.”

“Oh, great,” the woman says under her breath, covering her face with her hands. “I’m gonna be stuck here forever.”

“Is this place being what I think it is?” he asks her, his tone melancholic.

The woman sits on the floor. “It is exactly what you’re thinking,” she responds, pasting a solemn smile on her face. “So,” she starts changing the topic. ”What happened?” 

“Well, ” he shrugs. ”Like everyone else here, I died.”

“Shocking.” The woman rolls her eyes jokingly. “I mean, how?”

”It was quick for me,” the old man tries to sit on the floor too, ”I was taking out the trash; the sun was beating down my nape when I felt it: my chest contracting and I’m gasping for air. I remembered falling to the floor. I didn’t know what happened next. I just woke up in the most luxurious lobby I have ever seen. I have lived for seventy years, and I’ve never seen anything this huge and opulent. It’s like a coliseum or bigger. And it was packed with so many people from all walks of life funneling around me. I didn’t know what’s going on, so I walked towards the lady behind the desk. I asked, ’Where am I?’ and she just said, ’Oh, sir, you’re finally awake.’ She started punching buttons, calling on telephones. She led me here, rambling about all these things that I couldn’t understand. Only this elevator line only has two ends: the floor up and the floor down.”

“Pretty much the same thing happened to me,” answers the woman, who has been resolutely listening to him. “I woke up clueless as to where I am, and I initially had no recollection of what had happened to me.”

”Do you remember it now?”

“Memory’s still pretty bad. But it was an accident… car accident.” After all this time, she still hasn’t managed to say it without tasting copper in her mouth.

He conjures a picture in his mind; it is both blurry and familiar. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It’s just been days, but it feels like a distant memory now,” she says, brooding. “I still don’t understand how this thing’s taking forever to take me… there.” She wants to say upper floor, but she doesn’t want to claim anything lest it gets jinxed.

Being the older one in the room, the man feels compelled to offer an explanation. “You have heard of unfinished business, haven’t you?”

The woman laughs like he just told a joke. It’s like he just said she’s still alive—it’s not doubtful, it’s just utterly false. “I don’t think I would be cooped up here if I have something I haven’t done yet.” 

Before the old man can answer, the lights instantly shut off. Darkness takes over until a phosphorescent orb appears floating near the ceiling. They both stand up; the woman helping the old man get to his feet.

A voice comes out of the orb. “Good day!” They inadvertently look up. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. We are currently under system maintenance. Hence, the blackout. Rest assured that it will be immediately fixed in fifteen minutes.”

“Excuse me,” the woman takes this an opportunity to shoot her query, “I want to follow up. I think it’s been days since I got here. How am I still not going to where I’m supposed to go?” 

“Don’t worry. Once the power returns, your concern will be immediately addressed,” it says, unrelenting to human emotions.

The woman sighs in defeat. She is slowly resigning to her fate of perpetual waiting.

”As you are nearing your last destination, I assume you are already informed of our two floors system,” the voice goes on, ”the souls who wind up here are sorted out on the basis of merit and virtuous conduct. Should you meet the desired requirements, then you will be delivered to the upper floor. Otherwise, you get the lower floor. You are in elevator 30039, loaded with two people. According to your papers, each of you will be divorced on either floor—which means only one of you goes up, and the other one goes down below. Once we revert to normal operation, the elevator will take you to your respective floors. Any questions?”

“Either one of us? But why?” retorts the woman. She thinks that not only does the whole idea of sending her a company only to sort them out like curated museum artifacts are unfathomable, it is also cruel.

“I’m afraid I do not know. I am merely reading your papers.”

The old man raises his hand. He might already have known the answer to his question by now but he opts to ask anyway. “May I know what’s waiting for us there?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but that is sensitive information we are in no position to disclose. Once you get there, you’ll see it for yourself.”

“But... how do we know who goes where?”

“Perhaps, you do know, sir,“ says the voice.

But I don’t, the old man wants to say. He feels like all his questions are met with nothing remotely close to answers. And being kept in the dark exacerbates the fright of the unknown ahead settling in his gut.

“Do you usually put this many people in one elevator ride?” asks the woman. “Is that why I still don’t move forward because there’s only one of me?”

“The number of people we pack in one elevator varies, and it also depends.”

“Depends on what?”

”Depends on the papers handed over to us.”

“But who does the papers?”

“Sorry, but I do not know the answer, ma’am.”

“Well, what do you know?!” She does not want to take it on an employee who’s only doing their job, or an automated machine (who knows?) programmed to have them informed, but she’s confused, scared, and encumbered by her long-overdue department. Feeling all those emotions all at once has taken a toll on her temper. 

Notwithstanding that display of impertinence, it asks, “Are there no more questions?” No one speaks. “I assume there is none. Okay, have a nice day everyone, and good luck on your journey!”

Silence falls inside the room; it’s as if the intercom inhaled all the sound when it went out. The orb fades into a muted light, enough to illuminate their faces.

“Very transparent, I must say,” the old man says, darting side glances towards the woman who’s still clearly uncalm. 

“I can’t believe them,” she whines. In retrospect, she wishes she has talked back to the intercom more. Shoot a thousand questions or broach a confrontation; complain like an unsatisfied client. You know that feeling when you can only think of something better to say long after a conversation has already been finished? “We cannot be separated. I’m not letting it.”

The conviction makes him smile. There is an unspeakable comfort of not admitting even when they both know that their fate has already been sealed.

“On the bright side, it looks like you’re not gonna be stuck here forever after all. Fifteen minutes is all it would take and then we’re out of here,” he says in an attempt to be blithe. “It’s alright, maybe I’m not so nice of a person after all. Don’t—it’s okay, you barely even know me. It will be hard to take in but I think I can manage down floor.”

“You barely even know me too,” she argues. “What makes you so convinced I’m a good person?” She hugs herself, hoping that the dread won’t exude so much. When she veers towards the old man’s visage; the wrinkles and the spots brought by old age; the eyes that house both peace and gloom; it brings her qualms with the thought of not yielding to him. But then again, appearance can only give away so much.

“You don’t think you’re a good person?” he challenges.

With that, she mulls over the life she has lived. The memories play out like a movie in time-lapse. Mistakes were committed—some rectified, some remained a mistake. She ponders on all her assets and flaws that make up who she is and all she has grown to become. “Honestly, I don’t know,” she whispers. “I think I’m a good person in general, but I sure did a lot of bad things in my life as well.” She does not know if all those bad things are bad enough to warrant her fall to the lower floor.

“Oh, I have lived to this age long enough to commit plenty of bad things,” the old man contends. He stares at the void, looking pensive as if he’s watching his life unfold before him. “I hadn’t managed to protect someone I was supposed to keep safe.”

Whenever she looks at an old person, she could not help but imagine what they used to look like when they were young. She does not know his whole story. But what she can only see is a person still languishing in pain and regret even in the afterlife. She places her hand in his arm, hoping the gesture would let him know she’s there, in the same rocking boat as him.

Perhaps it’s the crazy idea of sequestering them to either salvation or damnation, or it’s her eyes tricking her to think that the old man suddenly reminds her of someone. 

“What is it?” asks him, feeling her curious gaze.

“Nothing,” she shrugs. “It’s just—you remind me of someone I know. Someone from the past. But I couldn’t remember.”

Looking at his eyes, she’s taken in a flash of memory. She was seventeen, holding someone’s hand while running towards a lake. When she had jumped into the water and had emerged out of breath, frosty cold and adrenaline rush coursing through her skin, her lips met that of a man. She remembered feeling young, rebellious, and in love. Then, she was about twenty. The room was lit in warm orange, and she was in the arms of the same person. Maybe it was the influence of wine, or it was just two people crazy for each other, but they swayed and pirouetted in the soft jazz playing on the radio, and shared kisses and laughter that reverberated the room that if the world ends tomorrow; tonight, they had something to remember by. The scene shifted to when she was slightly older. She was standing in the balcony of an apartment building, the whole city sprawling in sight. It was New Year’s Eve. The fireworks were marvelous across the purple sky, and she was beholding it in sheer awe; but as she turned beside her, to the man on his knees, hands holding out a ring, she realized that the universe could never not fail to outdo itself in giving the most splendid thing one after the other. So she said yes. She said yes to a ring slipping in her finger. She said yes to those dark eyes, an abyss she’d willingly get lost into. And she said yes, to the promise of a lifetime that only he could offer. She remembered a wedding with plenty of whites and golds, the pink of the lilies, and the dark, blue sky pelting rain on the car. But she could also see a bright, blinding light barreling forward, the red in her eyes, the red against the pink of the lilies, and the red against the white of her dress until eventually, it was all she could see.

She can vividly remember his face. She has memorized the lines that take form when he smiles; the full of his lips that it red like plum; the crooked lower set of his teeth, and the tiny mole he has on the chin. One upon a time, she had told him that even if his skin turned saggy, and his black hair turned white, she would recognize him still, and love him regardless.

But in the hereafter, the shock of death will leave your memory like a blank slate. Bit by bit it will come back, either naturally or in the presence of something that will make you remember. 

The two stared at each other for a while, torn between wanting, and not wanting to believe that any of this is real. She is as young as the last time they saw each other because the clock has long stopped ticking for her. He is old because time has stretched longer for him. 

She can feel it: the hurt and joy tugging from both ends. She thought about how she’s been stuck here for not days, but decades, waiting for someone to come so she could move on.

Dispelling the cloud that shrouded his memory, he has finally seen the only woman she has ever loved and married. He has known her half of his life that when he lost her, it’s like she had left a permanent silhouette carved in space. “I missed you in every waking day of my life,” he says, pouring all the sincerity into every word.

He will his mind into turning her as old as him with all the what-ifs and what could’ve been. She tries to picture the man she last saw before she died, wishing things have turned out differently.

Suddenly, the light diffuses the room. The orb flickers to power, and the voice is heard again. So much for fifteen minutes. “Thank you for your patience. We will proceed to our operation now. The elevator will slide open in ten seconds, prepare for unloading. Again, good luck on your jour—“

“Wait!” the woman calls out. “Are we still gonna get separated?”

The elevator dings open as they stand in front of each other. The light outside permeates the chamber, engulfing their bodies. When they open their eyes, they become seventeen again. Young, in love, and unafraid. With both of them frozen in time, words will no longer remain unsaid, pain will no longer be left unabated.

As they saunter out, they hold each other’s hands, not letting any forces tore them apart ever again—not death, not life, not any divine intervention. They will reclaim all those precious moments stolen from them, and it’s a good thing they have the whole eternity to do so.