The Elevator
—
Maximiliano Guzmán
MOHADED BUILT THE FIRST ELEVATOR in all of Recreo. He installed it in his new store.
What he didn’t know was that it would become the town’s most curious public attraction.
Men, women, and children crowded in to ride two floors up, take a few steps, look out the window at the low houses, and ride back down. Each person had a moment of confused reflection—whether with family, a partner, or alone—during the two minutes it took the elevator to reach the top floor.
This moment of reflection and strangeness, born of the new experience and the knowledge acquired, became a memory for the history books of families who had never ridden an elevator before. The experience was unique, yet endlessly repeatable.
Hope, anxiety, excitement were written on the customers’ faces. Customers who bought nothing. Not even asked prices or pretended interest in a microwave or television.
Mohaded laughed nervously; his investment in a giant appliance store had turned into a sentimental, transcendental journey for the neighbors.
Long lines waited their turn from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. Those who couldn’t enjoy it at that time—because they slept or worked—were given the last numbers, but the store always closed. The neighbors returned at six in the evening to line up until eleven at night.
Children from the Centro neighborhood rode up and down more than three times a day. They cut into the lines. Arguments, pushing ahead. They always got there first. Parents didn’t care, because they too cut in line and argued.
“But it’s just an elevator,” Mohaded told the store clerks.
It wasn’t just an elevator. Mohaded wouldn’t admit it, wouldn’t accept it. I understood the power of its existence in our miserable town. It could establish the most intimate connections from a better perspective.
A closed box of metal, plastic, and glass that lifted people in seconds, opening its doors at the top. Cutting distances, closer to the sky. Its silver robotic aesthetic, its futuristic mechanics, the prerecorded voice announcing the ride made the journey even more incredible.
Some neighbors brought their pets into the elevator.
Photographs in the mirrors of the box.
Laughter.
Everything was fine…
Everything was really fine…
Until I appeared, to ride it. Yes, I arrived at the store on a Tuesday, wearing a white shirt, orange tie, worn blue jeans, and Topper sneakers. My hair was messy and I had drunk two bottles of cough syrup. That made me feel strong. It was my energy drink.
It was six fourteen. I remember. And I waited in line an hour and a half.
Watching little birds and singing Iluminará by La Nueva Luna.
A burst of light exploded in the sky, forming a small crater that only I could see. The last sign of divinity.
My mother, back in the countryside when we lived there, used to say that God was not human.
I always searched for Him…
And destiny kept bringing Him toward me.
When it was my turn to move, nerves made my legs tremble.
I walked slowly. The automatic doors opened. I saw my face and body in the elevator mirror.
I breathed deeply.
Closed my eyes.
Took two steps and entered.
And there in the box I pressed number 2.
The doors closed behind me as the neighbors watched.
When the elevator began to rise… I pressed Stop.
Yes, I pressed Stop and the elevator froze midway, between the ground floor and the first floor.
And locked inside, on my knees, I began to pray.
An ancient prayer of zeros and ones.
I prayed to the machine.
Heat flooded my face.
Sweat poured as I knelt, creating a God. Or trying to.
Many minutes of prayer passed until I pressed On and the elevator resumed its climb.
The doors opened on the second floor.
I emerged transfigured, sweaty, exhausted, thirsty, and with tearful eyes I told the neighbors and clerks waiting above:
“It’s a miracle!” And I recounted (lying) that when the elevator stopped, everything went black and I saw lights, stars, a universe inside it. And a voice told me: “Tell them all I am alive.”
The neighbors and clerks listened, frowning, surprised, tired.
They told me to move my ass, to step aside. There was a line waiting to go down.
I was in the way.
I stepped aside.
The neighbors stranded on the second floor entered the elevator and descended.
And I waited…
Waited, staring at toasters and coffeemakers, for the Machine God to reveal itself.
But faith was in crisis.
Faith is in crisis. •
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Maximiliano Guzmán (b. 1991, Recreo, Catamarca, Argentina) is the author of the novella Hamacas (Zona Borde Editorial). He serves as an editor for the digital magazine La Tuerca Andante (Argentina) and has published short fiction across magazines in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Cuba, Croatia, Canadá, and the United States. His work has recently found places in Expat Press, HAD, Midcult , Hawkeye, Hobart, and soon in Apocalypse confidential, Burial Magazine, and more.
Twitter | Instagram
Men, women, and children crowded in to ride two floors up, take a few steps, look out the window at the low houses, and ride back down. Each person had a moment of confused reflection—whether with family, a partner, or alone—during the two minutes it took the elevator to reach the top floor.
This moment of reflection and strangeness, born of the new experience and the knowledge acquired, became a memory for the history books of families who had never ridden an elevator before. The experience was unique, yet endlessly repeatable.
Hope, anxiety, excitement were written on the customers’ faces. Customers who bought nothing. Not even asked prices or pretended interest in a microwave or television.
Mohaded laughed nervously; his investment in a giant appliance store had turned into a sentimental, transcendental journey for the neighbors.
Long lines waited their turn from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. Those who couldn’t enjoy it at that time—because they slept or worked—were given the last numbers, but the store always closed. The neighbors returned at six in the evening to line up until eleven at night.
Children from the Centro neighborhood rode up and down more than three times a day. They cut into the lines. Arguments, pushing ahead. They always got there first. Parents didn’t care, because they too cut in line and argued.
“But it’s just an elevator,” Mohaded told the store clerks.
It wasn’t just an elevator. Mohaded wouldn’t admit it, wouldn’t accept it. I understood the power of its existence in our miserable town. It could establish the most intimate connections from a better perspective.
A closed box of metal, plastic, and glass that lifted people in seconds, opening its doors at the top. Cutting distances, closer to the sky. Its silver robotic aesthetic, its futuristic mechanics, the prerecorded voice announcing the ride made the journey even more incredible.
Some neighbors brought their pets into the elevator.
Photographs in the mirrors of the box.
Laughter.
Everything was fine…
Everything was really fine…
Until I appeared, to ride it. Yes, I arrived at the store on a Tuesday, wearing a white shirt, orange tie, worn blue jeans, and Topper sneakers. My hair was messy and I had drunk two bottles of cough syrup. That made me feel strong. It was my energy drink.
It was six fourteen. I remember. And I waited in line an hour and a half.
Watching little birds and singing Iluminará by La Nueva Luna.
A burst of light exploded in the sky, forming a small crater that only I could see. The last sign of divinity.
My mother, back in the countryside when we lived there, used to say that God was not human.
I always searched for Him…
And destiny kept bringing Him toward me.
When it was my turn to move, nerves made my legs tremble.
I walked slowly. The automatic doors opened. I saw my face and body in the elevator mirror.
I breathed deeply.
Closed my eyes.
Took two steps and entered.
And there in the box I pressed number 2.
The doors closed behind me as the neighbors watched.
When the elevator began to rise… I pressed Stop.
Yes, I pressed Stop and the elevator froze midway, between the ground floor and the first floor.
And locked inside, on my knees, I began to pray.
An ancient prayer of zeros and ones.
I prayed to the machine.
Heat flooded my face.
Sweat poured as I knelt, creating a God. Or trying to.
Many minutes of prayer passed until I pressed On and the elevator resumed its climb.
The doors opened on the second floor.
I emerged transfigured, sweaty, exhausted, thirsty, and with tearful eyes I told the neighbors and clerks waiting above:
“It’s a miracle!” And I recounted (lying) that when the elevator stopped, everything went black and I saw lights, stars, a universe inside it. And a voice told me: “Tell them all I am alive.”
The neighbors and clerks listened, frowning, surprised, tired.
They told me to move my ass, to step aside. There was a line waiting to go down.
I was in the way.
I stepped aside.
The neighbors stranded on the second floor entered the elevator and descended.
And I waited…
Waited, staring at toasters and coffeemakers, for the Machine God to reveal itself.
But faith was in crisis.
Faith is in crisis. •
Maximiliano Guzmán (b. 1991, Recreo, Catamarca, Argentina) is the author of the novella Hamacas (Zona Borde Editorial). He serves as an editor for the digital magazine La Tuerca Andante (Argentina) and has published short fiction across magazines in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Cuba, Croatia, Canadá, and the United States. His work has recently found places in Expat Press, HAD, Midcult , Hawkeye, Hobart, and soon in Apocalypse confidential, Burial Magazine, and more.
Twitter | Instagram