The liftman

“The number of ups and downs a regular person has in one lifetime you probably have in one day.”

“I know. And yet what's ironic is that a dull monotony has set into my life ever since I took this job. I feel like a straight line that starts at some point, goes on and on and on, then stops. No incline, no decline, just a beginning and an end along a perfectly smooth plane. Maybe that's why I need to be a lift man, to feel like a normal human being. I need some simulation of going up then coming down then going back up, like everyone else. In my case, though, the ups and downs aren't accompanied by happiness or sadness. It's just one constant feeling all the time - as steady as the slow, unchanging pace of my elevator - a sense of vast emptiness. As if my life was an elevator shaft: dark, vacuous, stuffy. So even when I'm inside the machine pushing its buttons and directing it, I feel like my elevator’s travelling through me, trying to make me feel some semblance of sensation to reassure the existence of a life within my body. I can't tell you how I relate to this giant machine, but I know it keeps me sane. I think everyone should be a lift man at least once in their lifetime.”