It’s funny how everything can be
going along like normal and then suddenly things change. I guess one should
expect that, but for some of us, “expecting” that would leave us in a
disaster-paranoid mindset all the time, ridden with anxiety.
I was riding the nasty Twin Towers elevator up to the parking bridge. I do it atleast 3 days a week if not more. Have for the past year since I got lazy about the stairs. All alone, I was watching the parking levels pass me by through the glass. One floor, two floor… only 3 total. Not a long ride. We get to 5 and I’m ready to step out – I look over at the door… and nothing happens. I look at the floor through the glass to make sure it’s centered right at level 5. It’s not – something is off. I start to breathe heavy but the rest of me isn’t panicking yet. THEN the elevator starts dropping down (and I start panicking, imagining it’s going much faster than it is). I think surely I’m just going back to level 3 because someone down thee pushed the button. Level 3 passes me and I watch it ascend above me in claustrophobic terror. I grab the handrail – far too many action movies are flitting through my head with worst case scenario scenes. There has to be a bottom… but what’ll it be like when we get there? We get there. I wait, terrified. The doors ding and open and I jump out, then turn around and survey my surroundings. I’m alone in a dank, dirty basement I’ve ever been in before. The lighting is an eerie yellow, eerie especially because it’s 4:15pm in the afternoon and this reminds me of night time down here. I listen and hear nothing, no people. The elevator closes. In front of me is the stairway I could have taken to begin with ad avoided all this.
I was riding the nasty Twin Towers elevator up to the parking bridge. I do it atleast 3 days a week if not more. Have for the past year since I got lazy about the stairs. All alone, I was watching the parking levels pass me by through the glass. One floor, two floor… only 3 total. Not a long ride. We get to 5 and I’m ready to step out – I look over at the door… and nothing happens. I look at the floor through the glass to make sure it’s centered right at level 5. It’s not – something is off. I start to breathe heavy but the rest of me isn’t panicking yet. THEN the elevator starts dropping down (and I start panicking, imagining it’s going much faster than it is). I think surely I’m just going back to level 3 because someone down thee pushed the button. Level 3 passes me and I watch it ascend above me in claustrophobic terror. I grab the handrail – far too many action movies are flitting through my head with worst case scenario scenes. There has to be a bottom… but what’ll it be like when we get there? We get there. I wait, terrified. The doors ding and open and I jump out, then turn around and survey my surroundings. I’m alone in a dank, dirty basement I’ve ever been in before. The lighting is an eerie yellow, eerie especially because it’s 4:15pm in the afternoon and this reminds me of night time down here. I listen and hear nothing, no people. The elevator closes. In front of me is the stairway I could have taken to begin with ad avoided all this.
I have a choice again now (as my
knees still quiver slightly from my previous ride). All this happens within a few
seconds: I walk over to the second elevator next to the first and punch the
button thinking surely this one will work properly. I look up: level 4. I wait,
and secretly hope others are on this one. No one is. I get on and we go up, and
then come to a halt at 3 again. A lady bustles in with her cart full of files
and papers and notebooks. Flustered in her own hurry she thanks me for holding
the door and then goes to town on her smartphone in the corner. She has no idea
the terrible images that just flashed through my mind minutes ago, the fear, the feeling of being
in a cage dangling by a string, being dropped into a dungeon for some unknown
reason. My legs are still stiff, though not trembling. We arrive at 5 and I
step off – quickly.
As I walk down the bridge it hits me:
what gave me the impression that second elevator would behave? Why did I choose
that instead of the safe and known reliable stairs? Because I knew it would be
ok? No. Because somehow I believed it would be ok? Yes.
Is that the definition of faith?
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