By Simon Cox

There is not a single standard that this elevator meets. The floor doesn’t feel the same as those in all the other elevators. It’s like it’s got a layer of rubber on top. The lights are an odd shade of yellow I’ve never seen before, the font on the elevator buttons is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and because it’s so big, lifting the thing would take a good forty… no, maybe even fifty horsepower. A wall-to-wall carpet, ornately carved tables and chairs, a chandelier with rose-shaped luminaires, classical music playing softly through a speaker, wood-panelled walls and a giant landscape painting… all this frivolity for a box you spend less than a minute in? I am definitely in the wrong place. 

Pinggggggggggg! I look at the dial above the sliding doors, which are as shiny as mirrors. A tiny golden hand points far to the right, at the number 259. The bell – and yes, a physical bell – is mounted beside the dial, the ring still emanating around the room. Innnnnnnnnnng. Then, without a sound, the doors glide open. Beyond the door lies a rooftop patio of sorts, and beyond that is nothing but night sky. A beautiful night sky, too, one speckled with gleaming stars and splashed with colourful clouds of… Oh, I always forget the name. Some kind of space dust, or something. Enthralled, I step forward. Then I stop dead in my tracks. My gut shrinks to half its size. I am oh-so-definitely in the wrong place.

Sitting beside a fire pit in the center of the patio space is a well-dressed man, wine glass in hand, twisted ninety degrees in his seat to face me. Immediately, I see myself from his point of view; a stranger in a stained brown trench coat and a toque, duffel bag in hand, shoulders clenched, arms held inwards, has just tiptoed out of their elevator, and then, upon being spotted, frozen himself like a deer in headlights. I need to say something, quick.

“Uh… hey, I… Uh… I’m so sorry… I… Uh… I must’ve went  to the wrong floor…” I stammer.

“Oh no, you’re in the right place,” the man says, “you came because of the sign, right?”

I had come because of the sign. Only sixty seconds earlier, I was leaving the boiler room of this hotel-like building exactly at the end of my three-to-eleven shift, zipping up my bag of tools as I walked, humming to myself the same tune that I had been humming since I was a kid. As had happened the few other times I passed by, a tiny little golden plaque caught my attention. It was only about the size of the head of a hammer and had the words “Something new” engraved in it, with an arrow pointing towards the elevator. 

“Well, yes… technically… but it’s not like I-”

“Perfect. Come take a seat,” the man says.

His voice is calm as if he is speaking to an old friend. He also sounds pretty old himself. Not too threatening of a guy… So I suppose there’s no risk in complying. I slowly saunter out of the elevator, my tools swaying around my waist. The rooftop is more lavish than I thought. A pool sits at one corner, a bar beside it, a discreet waterfall flowing to my left, and a helicopter! An honest-to-god helicopter! I am oh-so-absolutely-definitely-not-a-doubt-about-it in the wrong place. 

I am oh-so-absolutely-definitely-not-a-doubt-about-it in the wrong place. 

The man gets out of his seat with shaking arms, revealing his thin suit to be baggy on his even thinner body.

“You tend to go by names here, don’t you? What’s yours?” he asks.

I pause. “Tal,” I say, “and I don’t… I don’t go by anything else, just Tal.”

“Oh yes, I just meant people here in general.”

I look at the old man, and he looks back without a hint of mischief. 

“Well, what’s your name, then?” I ask.

“I don’t really do names. I end up making a new one every time I move.”

Then the old man beckons to me and begins hobbling towards the edge of the roof.

“Come, Tal, take a look at this view for me.”

I fall in stride with him. Nothing lies ahead of me but the night sky. But as I approach the edge of the roof, I see that the tops of the buildings are below me. Way below me. The streets, the buildings, the entire city is just a puddle of light that barely surrounds my feet. What surrounds that is a flat, snowy field, in all directions, for as long as I can see.

“Bet you’ve never seen anything but walls and towers, huh?” asks the old man, lightly jostling me.

I don’t respond, but instead just take in the view. I do a full three-sixty. Beyond the bar, the chairs, and the helicopter, there’s nothing but field.

“Looks like you haven’t.”

Every moment of my life has taken place in the small, glowing circle around my feet. I lean over and squint at the individual blocks. Every day, I came from my apartment and went to school, or to work… I go to the grocery store sometimes, once I went to a funeral… I never took the train for more than a few hours. That’s nothing, on this scale. Just about the length of the city. Of the little glowing puddle at my feet. I search my brain for the right words. 

“Is this… like… it? Is this all there is?”

The old man chuckles.

“They all ask that,” he says, “but no, there is more. You see that over there?”

I follow the old man’s hand, revealing another tiny, glowing speck along the horizon. The atmosphere around it also glows, like a tiny force field against the night sky. A line also runs between the speck and this city. A train, it must be.

“That city’s kind of like this one. They sell oil to this city. The people are all the same, though. Not a single one has ever taken the train here, just out of curiosity, not one of them has ever thought to themselves, ‘Hey, I wonder what else there is beyond the blocks surrounding my house and my office!’”

I look down at him, now bent over and shaking his fist.

“I mean… why would they?” I ask.

The old man sighs.

“Oh, I don’t know, don’t you ever want to just… try something new?”

“Oh, I don’t know, don’t you ever want to just… try something new?”

I raise my eyebrow. I would only want to try something new if my current life weren’t working. But my life is working. And I’m working, too. Three to eleven, seven days a week.

“That’s why I put the sign there, you know. I wanted someone with some damn curiosity, some people who wanted to do more with their lives than what they already do, to come up that elevator and use their brains to get out of this place with me!” he shouts, and, in one smooth move, turns back towards the fire pit, takes one step, trips on himself, and falls to the ground.

I recoil, then sigh and bend over, half-carrying this groaning old crank back to his seat.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘get out of this place?’ Where would you go?” I ask, gesturing to the empty world ahead of us with one frustrated arm.

“Away. Just to the middle of nowhere. I’d leave everything behind. I’ve done it before, you know. I left my home city at twenty, lived in the woods with a small group of campers until I was thirty. Left again, lived on my own for a while. Hunted, gathered, did it all. I’ve lived in countless cities since then, and I’ve walked for miles and miles between them. I later graduated to the helicopter as the life started to seep out of me. But they’re all the same. People are born, they work, they die. I’ve been born, and I’ve worked. I’ve worked so hard. I have more money than I know what to do with! That’s why I own this tower, and just about half of the buildings in this city.”

Okay, I’ve had it by now. I get up from my bent position by the old man’s chair and begin to walk back toward the elevator.

“No, no, I’m serious! I’ve done everything there is to do in a life! Everything!” 

I step inside and jam the “ground” button.

With seconds left before the doors close, I shout back at him, “And you choose to give up all your comforts for… for what? For change? Is that all?”

“That’s the only thing left to do! To start again! To see if there’s anything else out th-”

The doors glide shut without a sound. I lean back on the elevator wall, heave a heavy breath, and let the soft classical music overtake my hearing. This man is clearly out of his mind. Why not just be satisfied? There’s plenty to enjoy. And, of course, this is all assuming that he is telling the tru-

Pinnnnnnggggggg. The doors silently glide open to reveal a lavish sort of office space. I look down at the elevator buttons. I had hit the button for floor 240 instead of the ground floor. Why would they not put the ground button at the bottom? Innnnnnggggg. I jam the button labelled “G.” I could really improve the efficiency of this elevator, you know. Shrink the room fourfold, take out the paintings and line the walls with aluminum, tear out that damn bell and install a buzzer. But not tonight. Tonight I’m taking the train home, treating myself to a microwave burrito and some TV before bed. 

I feel the pressure in my knees as the elevator comes to a stop. Pinnn- I reach up and touch my finger to the bell, cutting its ringing short. The doors glide open and I am halfway across the grand hotel lobby before they close again. A waiter with a tray of some clear drinks in small glasses spots me. He straightens up, but then sees my handyman attire and relaxes again.

“Would you like one?” he asks.

“No thanks, I’ve got to get to work tomorrow,” I say, not breaking my stride. I shove open the door and step onto the street, the cold and darkness enveloping my body. I am immediately faced with the dark metal wall of the building across the street, completely blocking my view. No wonder I had never seen those empty fields before, there are walls in every direction. I huddle my coat around me and crane my neck up at the tower I was just in. Between the electrical cables, the billboards, the streetlights, and the rooftops of other buildings, I see the top floor, made tiny by the distance, and above that, two microscopic little rectangles, spinning around and just barely peeking out over the edge of the building. I can just barely hear them, too. Fwoosh… fwoosh… fwoosh… fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh. The helicopter. The man was serious. He’s leaving.

The idiot! We both have lives here. Why give it up? I just want to get to bed, I think to myself, I want to get to bed so that I can wake up early and get to work. So that I’ll have enough money to get home and go to bed, so that I can get up and go to work. So that I’ll… mm…

I look down the street I will be taking home, caked in ice and slush, sparsely lit by streetlights, and barricaded on either side by skyscrapers. I think of the train, of my apartment, of my TV, all existing just to fill the brief periods of downtime in between my daily routine. Then I look up at the helicopter blades, backlit by stars and that neon-coloured space dust… it occurs to me that I never bothered to learn what it was called. I never bothered to ask what that other city, that one on the horizon, was called. 

One final time, I say to myself, “I am in the wrong place.”

I bounce from foot to foot, watching in eager anticipation as the golden hand moves across the dial, my finger repeatedly jamming the button labelled “259.” The sound is muffled, but I hear it. Fwoosh fwoosh fwooshfwooshfwoofwoofwoofwfwfwfwfwffffffffffffff. The doors slide open and I am blown back by a gust of icy wind. I march forwards. Out the elevator. Across the patio. Towards the helicopter. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. I rap on the helicopter door. The old man opens it.

“Take me with you,” I say, and into his hands I press a golden plaque. It is bent in the middle with two clear dents, and still attached to fragments of drywall. Two screws still protrude from either side, also bent and covered in crumbling debris. But, most importantly, the words engraved on the surface still read “Something new.”