Destination Destiny

Five individuals take the elevator trip that changes their very description of reality.

I walked into the lobby of the ten story building which was the source of my monthly income. Law was going to be fun, it would’ve been how I would change the world, but my expectations were beaten to a pulp by the reality of things. I had worked as a paralegal for half a decade and the only useful raise I had seen was the one my boss had given himself.
I hated being late, mostly because of the tantrum my boss would let loose on the entire office, who in turn would roast me for getting on his nerves. I would go through four alarms, eat pre-cooked and microwaved breakfast and be out for work by seven, but somehow, I would get a flat or some unfortunate neighbor would park right outside, blocking the path. It seemed as though time itself had found its way to constantly disrupt my life.
Today was no different as I was pulled over twice by the police. By the time I was walked into the office I was over an hour late. The lobby of Tennyson Heights was a quaint place, known for attracting lobbyists, tourists interested in the field and also random strangers from the streets. People milled about, meeting with lawyers and cases to be handled, the constant buzz of a stressed out but productive building filled my ears.
I looked over at the elevator which I was rushing to, seeing a lady already settled in, waiting for its doors to close and take her to whatever floor she requested. She had dark hair and a leather bag, her mouth winding overtime, not the way it would in a conversation, but similar to the way it would look if she was eating some gum.
“Hey, hold the elevator!” I screamed at her in a voice that was laced with unequal measures of panic.
She looked up at me, giving me a once over and concluded that I wasn’t worth it, ignoring my request and letting the elevator doors continue its journey towards each other. I got to it in the nick of time, sliding my fingers through the slim gap left. I saw the lady roll her eyes and pretend to be busy on her phone as I got in. I knew it was New York, but I hoped there was still faith to be had in few people. Maybe I was wrong.
The doors shut as I hit the eighth floor, where my cubicle awaited. The lady carefully made sure we made no eye contact. Mostly because I had a strange urge to question her behavior. She tapped away on her phone, eating her bubblegum noisily in the confined space. The rising metal box stopped at the third floor and I prayed it was her stop, but my prayer was answered in another form.
Chelsea, my boss’s secretary and most certainly the lady who deserved to be on the cover of every Victoria secret item. She was the perfect woman in the eyes of myself and a lot of my coworkers, women too. She had long flowing blond hair that seemed to be in perfect resonance with the wind, deep blue eyes that pierced your soul and destroyed all mental coordination on contact. Her legs were the perfect duo, designed for strutting across the skies, going on for miles and miles. I had been in a few one-sided conversations with her, and by conversation, I mean she, passing down orders from my boss. Maybe this was my chance to change that.
“Hey Jon.” She spoke in her normal high pitched bird-like tone. “Late as usual, I see.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but it fell shut on the second comment. She took her stand behind me as I hit the button on the elevator again. I could almost feel Chelsea’s eyes boring into the back of my head. It made me nauseous, sweaty and light headed. I noticed the bubblegum lady looking over at me, noticing my countenance and connecting it with the newest member of the elevator. She turned back to her phone with a silent giggle.
The elevator halted again at the next floor, it’s doors parting, encouraging the dread I was feeling. Even now it seemed like the elevator wanted to make me as late as possible. A man walked into the elevator, but one not like I expected. He was dressed in rags, basically, layers and layers of clothing worn underneath a long dirty trench coat. He held a bottle of liquor in a paper bag in one gloved hand. Instantly, the elevator smelled of rain and alcohol. Chelsea and I recoiled instantly, moving further backwards into the elevator. Bubblegum didn’t even look up from her phone.
The homeless man hit the tenth floor and I was surprised. Either he was incredibly lucky or just drunk. But either way, I just needed to get to the ninth floor. It wasn’t impossible to see a homeless man wander into the building often, they were usually stopped and sent out at the lobby. I just hoped someone would call security faster. We rode in silence up till the seventh floor, and when the metal box stopped again, I swore to always take the stairs. A man in a perfect three piece suit and a steel attaché case walked in. He paused and glanced at the homeless man, before turning to me with a questioning eyebrow.
I shrugged.
“You heading down?” he asked the homeless.
“Nope.” He replied, stretching and stressing out the word.
“You got an appointment?”
“Nope.”
“Want to make an appointment?”
“No.”
The man in the suit sighed. He had greying hair that was perfectly kept and a gold Rolex watch on his wrist. He looked well groomed and lived well. He hit the button for the tenth floor and we continued our slow ascent. On reaching the ninth floor, I tried to wiggle past the now crowded elevator, careful not to touch the homeless and the bubblegum lady as well. I was merely inches from the button when the homeless man put his finger forwards and hit the emergency stop button.
I froze, broken. The elevator had locked shut and would not be opened from the inside for another ten minutes. Everyone seemed to turn on the homeless man at once, everyone except the lady on her phone who looked bored to death. Chelsea let her voice be heard, but it just sounded like music in the confined space. The man in the suit looked ready to tackle the homeless man to the ground.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I have a meeting in five minutes how dare you? What are you even doing up here?”
“I’m calling security.”
Chelsea pulled out her phone and tapped vigorously a few times before putting the device to her ear. Bubblegum lady stirred, looked up at Chelsea “Hey, are you getting any reception? I think the Wi-Fi doesn’t work on this floor.”
“I don’t have any bars.”
I pulled out my smartphone and checked, with the exact same results. We were trapped in the elevator without a way to call out for help. “Well they’ll notice somethings wrong with the elevator and they’ll get to fixing it in a few. We just have to wait it out.”
The homeless man took a seat at the elevator doors, back to it. He took a big swig of his drink before sneezing vehemently. Chelsea recoiled, stumbling as far from him as she could. Bubblegum lady looked tensed, whatever she had been doing on her phone obviously wasn’t working anymore due to the reception debacle.
“I can’t wait for these things to open, I’ll have you thrown out of this building myself.” The man in the suit spoke in a voice so menacing, I felt a little shaken. But the homeless man didn’t seem to care, or even hear the threat. He lifted his bottle again, downing nearly half it’s contents and let out a loud burp. He cleaned his lips with the back of his fingerless-gloved hand before clearing his throat.
“So, I bet you’re all wondering why I gathered you here.”
The man in the suit exchanged glances with me, looking incredibly irked. “No! No one is wondering anything! You damn threw off everyone’s schedule!”
“That is irrelevant. This meeting here now, this is what matters. The fate of humanity rests in the balance of the people in this elevator.”
“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?” Chelsea asked, her hands animated.
“Who do you think you are Mister?” Bubblegum inquired.
“I am God. And you four will stop the next mass extinction event from happening.”

Author's Note

Do not ignore grammar problems. Attack my writing with a flaming sword. Lol

Reviews

[JayG]

• Do not ignore grammar problems. Attack my writing with a flaming sword.

An excellent attitude, but that means you have only yourself to blame for this. 😁

The problem is that because you suffer the same problem, and misunderstanding, that all hopeful writers do, the issues that are holding you back are invisible.

In writing this story, as you’ve been taught to do, you the author, are explaining and reporting the events you visualize taking place. The viewpoint, start to finish, is that of the narrator. But because the reader cannot know what emotion the narrator would use were they reading aloud, and can’t know the gestures and expression the narrator uses, the only emotion in the words is what punctuation suggests. Stop for a moment and have your computer read the first few paragraphs to you, to hear how different what the reader gets is from what you hear when you read.

The loss of emotion in the narrator’s voice and the fact that the narrator is explaining, not living, renders the narrator dispassionate. Yes, you’re using first person personal pronouns, but there’s no difference between someone telling a story and the one who lived it telling the same story. In neither case is the narrator on the scene, so the scene isn’t live. And in fact, your first paragraph is a report—what’s called an info-dump. Does it really make sense to open a story and then talk about what happened before the story opened? Is a fiction reader interested on what happened or what’s happening? Do they want what’s happening on THAT day or an overview of general information?

Part of the reason you’re not seeing the problems is that you already know the characters and their history, their goals, and the setting. And because you do, you’ll leave out what seems obvious as you write. Then, when you read it, you automatically fill in the missing data.

To show what I mean, look at the opening, not as the author, but a reader, who knows only what the wording suggests to them, based on their life story, not yours:

• I walked into the lobby of the ten story building which was the source of my monthly income.

So the BUILDING is their source of money? Not what you meant, but it is what you said.

And, “monthly income?” Why not just say income? And why mention the lobby, given that nothing happens there?

But more than that, where are we in time and space? That matters, because a story set in 1949 London will be different in feel from one set in 2037 Brisbane.

What’s going on? As we read this, it appears that someone unknown, of unknown age, gender, situation and goals is stepping into the lobby of what could be an office building, an apartment complex or condo, headquarters of a mega-corporation, or any combination of them. You know. The protagonist knows. Everyone in the building knows. But, who did you write this for? If the narrator is to be our avatar shouldn’t we know? Will they figure it out. Sure, but they shouldn't have to, After all, there is no second first-impression.

And finally, what’s going on? The character could be reporting to work, returning from lunch, or be a night watchman. Shouldn’t we place the reader in time and space, and make them know what’s going on before talking as if the reader knows what we know?

See how different what the reader gets is from what you intend? But let me interject, here, that this isn’t about how well you’re writing, or, talent. It’s about that misunderstanding I mentioned, and the effect it’s having on your story.

• Law was going to be fun,

Here is one of those details you fill in to avoid a problem. When you read this you know that it refers to past failures, and what should have been. But the reader, not knowing that, and not hearing the way you stress the word “was” to place it in the past, will hear the word as a future reference, as in “This was going to be fun.” When they move on and hit the word “would’ve they have to stop and re-evaluate the words they just read. They shouldn’t have to. You might fix it by dropping the clause and saying, “Law would’ve been how I’d change the world, …” But because you know HOW to read the line you never see the problem—all because of an unfortunate misunderstanding we all fall victim to:

Because the profession is “Fiction-Writing, and we learned a skill called writing, we naturally assume the two words refer to the same thing. But the professions Sanitary-Engineer, an Electrical-Engineer, and a Train-Engineer share a word. And the word Engineer in their titles is exactly as related as the word Writing is in this case.

What did you spend most of your time writing in school? Reports and essays. Why? Because employers need people to write reports and essays. And the purpose of public education is to provide employers with useful, and trained, workers. Professions are acquired in addition to basic skills like nonfiction writing. And Fiction-Writing is a profession.

Somehow, while we realize that we can’t write a screenplay, or work as a journalist without a lot more than basic writing skills, we never apply that to fiction.

But nonfiction’s goal isn't to inform and explain. It's to provide an emotional experience. Relate that idea to yourself: Do you want the author to tell you that as our protagonist descends the steps into a spooky basement he feels terror? Or do you want the writing to terrorize YOU? No way to do that with nonfiction skills, so…

The solution is simple: Add the specialized knowledge and skills of fiction to the nonfiction skills you own. It won’t be overnight, because simple and easy are not interchangeable words, but without those skills using nonfiction skills will produce what reads like a history book—accurate so far as reporting detail, but boring. And if you are meant to write you'll find the learning fun.

The library’s fiction-writing department is filled with the views of pros in writing, publishing, and teaching. So time spent there is time wisely invested.

My personal suggestion is to go to the best book on the subject I’ve found, Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. You can find it at the link below. There are three buttons, and the button on the left, which is written in Russian, is the download button. You can use it to select the kind of file your reader requires (.epub, .mobi, .pdf, etc.)
https://ru.b-ok2.org/book/2640776/e749ea

For an overview of the issues discussed in the book you might look at a few of the writing articles in my blog. They’re meant for that purpose.

But whatever you decide, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/