Can you believe this?! Yeah, no, they’ve literally gone to “talk it over”. 9 people in this elevator and not one thought twice about going Just Let Go. Content warnings for description of permanent injury, pained noises, suicidal ideation, mention of a dead body, and death in an elevator.

to “talk it over”. And what about me, huh? Do I not get to be part of the conversation? I can help figure it all out real quick. Who should come hold this goddamned elevator in place while I get out of it? Probably any person who can do it before my goddamn arms tear off!

They know I can hear them. They’re like, right around the corner. If I didn’t mind falling to my death I bet I could even see some of them.

Yup. You’re all there. Having a little huddle. Not one looking this way, of course. Can’t be looking me in the eye while your All Important Debate is going on, eh? “My husband, child, and guinea pig are waiting at home!” “The quarterly board meeting is tonight, I can’t miss it! I’m the chair!” “I’m too old to-” “-I still have my whole life ahead of me!”  “oh, but I’m a hand model! I have a very important shoot next Tuesday!” yeah? Well I’m pretty sure my left wrist is broken, so screw you.

And this is why we take the stairs. Especially when going down. Because at any moment, something somewhere could catch fire, or break, or just decide it doesn’t want to work anymore, and then some too-bro-for-his-own-good guy will want to open all the hatches in every wall of the elevator to “see what’s going on”, and then a cable could- for some goddamn reason- snap and fall onto the guy who stupidly climbed halfway out from the top hatch by now, and then that guy will die, and then it will be up to you to feed the loose end of that cable that just killed a man through spinning-out-of-control gears and nearly lose your finger in there, and of course the cable and the gears are metal so they get each other like, really hot, and now you and your blistering hands need to hold that cable tight until the elevator stops, and someone manages to get the door open, and every one of the 9 people in the elevator get out through the slit between the 14th floor and, well, the fourteenth floor, of course leaving you with the dead body because they sure aren’t gonna touch it, and then they decide they need to confer about who is going to hold onto the leftover cable- which isn’t long enough to go all the way out the elevator because why would it be- so that you can leave the elevator too, and you’ve been in here for an uncomfortably long time and that’s just how your Thursday is going now.

So yeah. Stairs. I mean sure, twenty-three floors is… a lot, but you’ll be way happier with your sore legs on the 1st floor as opposed to halfway down the 14th with probably forever-mutilated arms. 1st floor option also comes with some small lingering faith in humanity! That’s always a plus.

Hang on. Where’s everyone gone? OI! Oi! Y’all still there? I can’t hold this forever! Oh, no, what if they- no, no come on. They won’t leave. They know I’m still here. Ohhhh no. Okay, deep breath.

That. That was the fire exit. That was for sure the fire exit. They totally left.

Fuck! Those mother fucking pieces of shit godammit.

Okay, no shift change. Fine. We didn’t need them anyway, did we- (I’m talking to a dead body whose name I don’t know) …Todd? Yeah, we’ll get through this with nothing but the clothes on our backs and the- Oh! I could… try to stick a bunch of clothes in the gears and jam them that way! Though, judging by the size of these… yeah, no. Need something tougher. Jammier.

[Looks to dead body. Looks to elevator guts. Considers.]

Nope.

[another beat]

Oh god, this hurts. I tell ya, you’re definitely the one better off here, Todd. This is hell. I can’t do this anymore. They’re not coming back, and I’m stuck here until both my arms dislocate, and then I’ll fall.

I mean, what’s the use in waiting? Nothing will change in the, what, few minutes I could hold on for? I could just… let go now. Get it over with. With as little pain as I can. That- that’s got to be better than waiting longer. I can let go, and that’s it. Easy. Just let go…

This microsode was written by Nikko Goldstein. It was recorded and produced by Tal Minear.

Nikko is also a sound editor and voice actor. You can find them on twitter @silentengee and listen to their one-person micros- The Little Bits.