Light, Dark: Part 1

Light.

Mark Cliffton’s greatest fears were realized on Monday when he became stuck in the elevator somewhere between floors three and four. He had long since decided that Mondays were Elevator Days; a small carrot to get him out of bed after a long weekend absent of work. Initially, the Monday/Elevator Day decision was made while he was a sophomore in college. His Cultural Anthropology class was Monday morning at 8 sharp—doors locked at five after—and on the third floor of the Harris building. By Junior year, Mondays doubled as Kolache Day (Kolache Day almost matriculated into Doughnut Day, but Friday held rights to first refusal and passed on it’s privilege to turn it down). The warm Czech treat kept him company from discussion of Australopithecus society the first year of it’s tenure, all the way through Monday Morning Get Fired-Up meetings at his first claim underwriting firm.

The elevator halted abruptly with the determination that only malfunctioning machines can truly capture. Mark, a mild claustrophobe (a quality that helped him to take the stairs four days a week and supposedly burn off the calories of both Koloche and Doughnut Days alike), resisted the initial urge to bang the button panel with an open palm and then a closed fist. He calmed himself with a series of deep, relaxing breaths. He reminded himself, much as his mother use to, that even if he weren’t in the small, confined space, he wouldn’t be taking up any more than was afforded him in while confined (these were kind words from a woman who once locked him in a closet until he could behave himself which just happened to coincide with his mother’s ability to remember to take a Xanax and the speed with which it calmed her nerves enough to remember what guilt feels like).

Mark reminded himself that he was an adult. A fully grown man totally dressed in a suit and tie; the very picture of maturity and self-control. He took a moment to let this wave of rationality consume him. He formed a plan.

Slightly, he bounced up and down. He was hoping to budge the elevator track mechanism back into the safety back-up locking system, making things back into place and resume his ascent. This didn’t happen, as the elevator track safety back-up locking mechanism was something of his own design that existed entirely within his own mind, no matter how clearly he could picture the little grabbing ball bearings and the well-greased holding joints on each of the four sides of the elevator.

A general pressing of buttons followed. No result.

Luckily, Mark had been a long time fan of television.

A thoughtful pause.

A briefcase balanced, used as a stepping stool.

Yet even from his elevation near the top of the elevator car, Mark could find no secret panel to the roof of the car. So much for his imagined escape—slipping onto the top of the elevator, seeing the open door above, complete with the outstretched hands of several firemen. The buxom brunette, Sara Fuller, from the cubical down the hall, her mascara running down tears of joy and celebration at seeing Mark arriving on the top floor safely; her whispered invitation to dinner, a slight brushing of her hand against his cheek. Bravely, in his mind, Mark accepted the invitation and would one-up the touch that night.

Instead, a slipping briefcase found him on the ground, dreams of Buxom Sara’s touches slightly bruised.

He searched the compartment again. He looked for a hidden camera. He decided that, in all probability, there was a hidden camera, but that it was hidden beyond his ability to find. The frustrated voice of his father came back to him from that one Easter when even a game of “hot and cold” couldn’t lead him to the last colored egg, “You couldn’t find it if it hatched a bald eagle holding a snake in its mouth!” While his father’s theory was forced to remain theoretical, he had a valid point that still held true.

In case of a well hidden and monitored camera, he waved his arms and acted like he was screaming, fully aware that a hidden camera did not include a hidden microphone, in almost all situations.

Panic was the next logical step.

Mark inhaled a deep breath and tensed up his muscles, like a spring coiled for action.

The elevator, a fifteen year old ThyssenKrupp, had never seen such screaming and pounding in all of its years of service.

Effectively, Mark tired himself out. He hadn’t been stuck a full fifteen minutes yet and already he was defeated. He was a sitting, sweating, disheveled pile of a man in a business suit sobbing in the corner of the elevator. The tears came easily and he loosed his tie, resigning himself to a sick day, even if he should make it out of the lift alive.

In the middle of his baby fit, the answer to his plight shined down on him, though it had been there all along.

Waiting. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d just wait until he got out. That was it! All he had to do was be a big boy and wait, just like he was in the Monday-morning-get-fired-up meeting, minding his own business until he was free to do what he liked. This was it, his final theory on his plight that would surely serve him until the end.

It was a good five minutes after he settled himself that something happened. It started as a mild shaking, and progressed in spurts into an all-out rumble, climaxing in a violent shaking and perhaps even spinning sensation. Somewhere in the middle of the commotion, Mark abandoned his waiting and went back to screaming. Then, when the shaking stopped, he stopped screaming and went back to the plan of crying. At no point during this transition was any true progress made and finally he gave up even on the crying.

Mark had no idea how long he sat there. An hour or two in the silence, maybe more. He was so shocked and so fully lost that he didn’t even notice until then that he had half of a kolache left. He decided that the best bet was to wait and not eat it, just in case he was in there for a while. He sat and looked at it, the jalapeno sausage covered in melted cheese peeking out of the baked bun. Then, swiftly and decisively, he ate it.

Nothing happened then for another indeterminable amount of time. Then, suddenly, a phone rang.

Salvation! Why hadn’t he seen it before? A big red phone with a blinking red light on top singing its head off. Crawling on the ground, he scrambled to pick up the receiver before the third ring.

“Hello? I’m stuck in here!” he called, more desperately than he had hoped.

“Yes, Mr. Cliffton?” the voice was distant sounding and slightly British.

“Yes, yes, can you get me out? Was there an earthquake?”

“Mr. Cliffton, you may as well stay calm.”

“I’m calm, goddamn it, I’m really calm. Can you get me out?”

“No, we won’t be doing that.”

Mark was shocked and nearly lost his head at this comment. “Don’t joke around, man, don’t do it. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Cliffton, that your elevator car, as you call it, has shifted somewhat.”

For a split second, Mark wondered what this mildly British man might call an elevator car. But without his vocalizing it, the answer came over the phone. “We call it a cross dimensional observation receptacle. You see, we lured you into it this morning and have collected you. We shifted it slightly out of your own dimensional reality. Even if those doors were to open, you’d have no idea how to slip back into your world. In fact, in a manner of speaking, those are not doors anymore.”

When someone in a cartoon or comic has an epiphany or a very blessed idea of any sort, they are seen to have a light bulb appear over their heads. In this case, however, whatever it is that is the opposite of a light bulb turning on—a candle being snuffed out or a foggy patch of darkness, perhaps—would be what one would animate over Mark Cliffton’s head at this moment.

“We have a startling proposition for you. I hope you’re paying very close attention, Mr. Cliffton. Are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Prove it.”

“What? How in the world would I prove it? Of course I’m paying attention, what the hell else would I be doing talking on the phone to you while stuck in a goddamn elevator?” Mark’s voice rose in a crescendo to very near madness.

The voice came back calm, as if a mother were talking to a child. “I want to make sure you’re thinking clearly before I offer you this proposition. Are you listening without passion, but with absolute rationality?”

“Yes, goddamn it, yes!”

“Okay then, Mr. Cliffton, what is the sum of 24 and 32?”

“What? What in the name of God are you—”

“24 and 32, Mr. Cliffton, what are they put together?” the voice was stern, now.

“Umm, ah, 56?”

“Ahh, very good, Mr. Cliffton, very good.” The voice was so pleased and Mark felt good about that.

“Okay, 56, great, now please tell me—”

“And the sum of 56 and twice 56?”

“What the hell for?”

“Mr. Cliffton,” again the strictness had returned to the voice. “I must be certain you are listening carefully and rationally. Now, it is my understanding that you are an accountant. What is the sum of 56 and twice that of itself?”

“168.”

“Divide that by 9.”

This line of questioning went on quite literally, for the better part of a day. One equation after another until, quite suddenly and miraculously, the voice said, “Oh, good, Mr. Cliffton! Jolly good!” In the background, Mark heard many more voices cheering and many hands clapping.

“Now just what the hell are they so thrilled about?”

“You’ve proven, against the standard 73 test parameters required be best practices, that you are, indeed, listening. What a breakthrough! We’ve established communication!”

Mark was, understandably, outraged. “We established communication like 10 hours ago! Now get me the hell out of here!”

“As I said before, we won’t be doing that.” A few light chuckles could be heard in the background. “That would defeat the whole purpose of establishing communication.”

“Just what in the hell is going on here?” Mark returned to his tantrum jumping, then he started kicking the wall.

“Mark? Are you still there? Do we need to establish rational communication again?”

“Oh, Christ no, Churchill, please no!”

“Then let me explain what I can to you. For reasons of research, I cannot explain everything. Listen closely and do not interrupt.” The voice paused. “We are studying you.”

Mark waited for further elaboration, silently. He waited and waited, but could hear nothing other than the breathing of the man—or whatever he was—on the other end. “And?’ Mark finally said.

“Oh, that’s all, Mr. Cliffton. We can’t tell you any more. Wouldn’t want to sully the research parameters, now would we?” The voice, it appeared, was very funny to his dimensional cohorts. Oh, how they chuckled.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh, the proposition, yes, Mr. Cliffton. I almost forgot. That is our first order of business, so I do want you to listen as carefully as you possibly can. Listen intently, in fact, so intently that you may realize that you’ve never truly listened to anything before. Are you listening that intently, Mr. Cliffton?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is seven times—“

“Oh for the love of God! Please no more math! I’m listening, I swear it, I’m listening.”

“I suppose we can do away with a touch of decorum, since you’re being so pleasant, Mr. Cliffton. You have a choice, Mr. Cliffton. We cannot study someone unless he does so willingly. We must determine that you would like to be studied. So here, Mr. Cliffton, is your proposition:

“Mr. Cliffton, you must choose. Would you like to be studied, in which case you would remain in this elevator, exactly as you are without the need of food, water, or any other such distractions, for one hundred of your human years, at which time we will let you go back to your life as if not a moment has passed? Or, would you rather we euthanized you now?”

Without hesitation, Mark said, “Oh my God, kill me. The sooner the better. I hate this shit, I want out or I want dead.”

“What?” The voice was genuinely taken aback. “Hold on a minute, Mr. Cliffton.” Mark seemed to have surprised the British right out of the voice.

He heard quiet discussion on the other end of the phone for some minutes. Finally, the voice returned, “We didn’t expect that, Mr. Cliffton. I’m afraid you’ll have to choose the 100 years.”

“Fuck!” Mark yelled at the top of his lungs.

“I’ll take that as a yes! Congratulations, Mr. Cliffton, you’ve chosen wisely. For the next 100 years you will further our understanding of you through many secret means that you can’t know about. You will be living here, in this deluxe cross dimensional observation receptacle. You will have no contact with anyone and no need of any bodily necessities.

“Once, every year, we will call you on this phone. When we do, you may ask us three questions. Make them interesting ones, ones that we can talk about for some time, since it will be your entertainment for the year.”

“Once a year? Are you insane?”

“No. And that counts as a question for your next phone call, one year from now. If you’re through interrupting, I will continue.

“None of the pens in your briefcase will work, so don’t bother writing anything. If you have anything to read in there, don’t bother; you’ve already forgotten how. Paper airplanes won’t work in this subdimension of yours and, in fact, any manner of folding is out of the question. Any form of entertainment, you will find, impossible.

“But there is a bright side! At the end of 100 years, our study will come to a close and you will leave here and go on to your Monday at work. We’ll even restore your kolache to the condition it was in when you entered the elevator.”

“Fuck-a-doodle-doo.” Mark was slumped over in a corner, barely holding the phone to his ear.

“And one more thing, Mr. Cliffton, and I’m afraid it’s rather embarrassing. No masturbation of any kind will be tolerated during your stay. It’s far too interesting for our purposes to pleasure yourself and, frankly, it sickens us a great deal. For every instance of autoeroticism, we will tack on another thousand years. Am I clear about that?”

“I’m not thinking about getting off, ass. I’m going to kill myself, Churchill, I really will. The moment you hang up.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that quite impossible. And for your stubbornness, that counts as questions two and three for your call next year. When the phone rings, you may as well not even pick it up because all you’ll hear is my breathing; I won’t be allowed to talk to someone who has used his questions up.”

“Oh my God, fuck you, dude.”

The voice was beyond perturbed. “Mr. Cliffton! How dare you. I’ll remind you that you chose to participate by your own free will. Now, I will talk to you in two years. Goodbye.”

The phone went blank and Mark dropped it on the ground. It hit the bottom of the elevator with a dull thud. From this moment further, Mark sat. Everything in his life changed in every way he could imagine.



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GO TO PART 2!