Wednesday

There was once something odd about both our elevators. The first elevator was the scariest: whenever it would rise the first few feet from the bottom floor there would be a long moment of horror movie scratching at the top right of the door. It happened in reverse, too. Screeitch; then something would be left between floors as the slow box settled to the ground. Whenever anybody rode that elevator, they'd get very quiet during the right couple seconds to hear the spooky sound: screeitch. The other elevator had a mind of its own. It would decide which floors it was going to visit without too much difference paid to depressed direction or floor buttons. Sometimes it would stop at the wrong floor. Sometimes it would go up instead of down. Often, it would go to the selected floor fine, but then return to its starting point without ever opening the doors and letting us out. Peculiar. Then, the second week we were here, the hot water weakened and mostly died. In the afternoons I could get the shower warm enough to stand in it. Before Sunshine's morning classes, however, it was never warmer than cold. Around this time, the random second elevator was locked and an apologetic note affixed to its temperamental doors. They hoped to have it fixed soon. Soon, we learned these problems were connected: the water heater had ruptured and was leaking into the shaft. I assumed this was the genesis of our elevator's spontaneous (and precocious) intelligence. I was compelled to contemplate the unlikely spark of life, the nature of god, and the like. But now the hot water is fixed and the elevator is still strange. The odd scraping in the first car has stopped, though. That went away all by itself. [Cavin]