CtrlC, CtrlV. CtrlC, CtrlV. #10
“So go and add them, and then go to your Christmas Eve supper.”
“No,” I reply firmly. “You should be happy at all that I did not take a personal day today, but came to the office and did most of the work.”
“You have already used up all your personal days this year, Maria,” he replies dispassionately. “Like all the other days off you were entitled to. Three in March, six in May and seventeen in July.”
I gnash my teeth. The fucking HR robot and his memory!
“Do you remember the vacation schedule of all your employees or was I the only one who got granted that honor?”
He’s silent, and it’s making me so annoyed that I’m boiling all over inside. Not only am I late for this friggin’ Christmas Eve, but this, this… foul-mouthed bossobot is giving me problems.
I feel like telling him straight to his face what I think of him. And that’s what I do. I stand in front of him and speak in a harsh tone:
“You are an inconceivable egotist,” I screech out in a voice full of anger. “I may have had the best orgasms of my life with you today, but it was just sex. Stripped of feelings, an animalistic fuck that could have been given to me by any other guy in the office.”
A muscle twitches on his clenched jaw. He doesn’t look at me, staring coolly at the elevator door.
What a nerve. He could at least look politely at me when I speak to him!
“You are as cold as a fish in a cemetery pond,” I rant angrily.
“And as dry as the ashes of a dead man in an urn. There is not even a shred of human feeling in you.” My buzz increases with every word.
“Tell me, what kind of servile, insolent type, selfish asshole do you have to be to go off with a text about work duties on Christmas Eve, and to a person you were banging less than half an hour ago!” I raise my voice and point my index finger at Jan.
“You are a jerk. I don’t like you. I dislike you so much that after I leave this damn elevator, I’m never going to speak to you again.
I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to know you. Do you get it?”
Silence. Coldness. Indifference. Impassiveness. Insolence.
Jan is just standing like a statue and looking straight ahead, as if I wasn’t even here. Uhh, this is the height of insolence.
“Fuck, Jan, I’m talking to you and you don’t give a damn. Speak up.”
All I get is silence and no eye contact. And I am losing it. I lower my head. No, it doesn’t make sense.
“You are the most obnoxious man I have ever met, and you make me feel hurt!” I fix my gaze on him, but he still does not bother to look back at me.
“Even my parents, who consider me worth an absolute zero, are angels of kindness and respect next to you. They at least are honest with me and I know what to expect from them, while you treated me like a common whore,” I add bitterly.
I rode him hard, so be it. I have nothing left to lose, except my job.
“Have a wonderful Christmas, Jan. May you get what you really deserve.”
Meaning a fucking rod with spikes up the ass, I add in my mind, then move as far away from him as possible.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. In my eyes burn anger, bitterness, but also sadness and disappointment.
Oh, you naive Mary.
Oh, you fucked-up day.
I hate Christmas Eve, I hate Christmas! I now know it for sure and at the same moment the light goes out.
I hold my breath. What is it? The light comes on, but only for a second, only to dim in a moment and dissipate into a faint glow.
The elevator slows down, making a buzzing sound, and suddenly stops. I catch hold of the handle, glance at the panel, and it fades, as if the batteries in it have run out. The air conditioning shuts off. There is nothing but deathly silence.
Is this our floor?
And then all the lights go out. Complete darkness falls.
What the fuck?
A few seconds later, the emergency light on the panel comes on. In the dim light, I notice that Jan is pressing the emergency bell.
We both wait, staring at the dark panel. The silence is deafening.
His thumb pushes on the button again. Nothing.
“Here is the phone number for the elevator service.” I fumble in my pockets looking for my cell phone. It’s not there. Only smokes, a lighter and chewing gum. All my stuff is upstairs in my purse. “Call them,” I order Jan and put a piece of gum into my mouth.
“Since when does a subordinate give orders to the boss?” he replies sharply and presses the button again.
Well, there you go, so he can talk.
“Since the boss started thinking with his dick instead of his brain.”
“What did you say?” He turns to me.
“If you had behaved like a normal boss today, nothing would have happened between us, I would have finished my report earlier and would have been sitting at the Christmas Eve table with my parents instead of being stuck in the fucking elevator with you.”
“With the same parents who consider you a total zero?” He raises an eyebrow.
I clench my jaws. Wow, a quote, imagine that.
“Stop picking on me. I prefer their company to yours. I think I made it clear what I think of you.”
“Yes, you did a great job. However, I would disagree with a few statements.”
“Really? I’m dying of curiosity.”
“Maybe I’ll start by saying that I didn’t treat you at all like…” He pauses. He grunts, as if the words choked him.
“Like what? A whore?”
He makes a grimace.
“I would never have thought of you like that, Maria. Never.” He sounds so convincing that I almost believe him.
“But that’s how you treated me. I felt like a whore used to give satisfaction and to be dismissed right afterward. Is this damn report really that important? Does some fucking string of numbers, analysis and statistics mean more to you than me?”
“No.”
“Then why did you tell me to finish it when you saw perfectly well that I was in a hurry?”
Jan doesn’t answer, just pushes the button again so hard until his finger turns white.
“You are hopeless.” I shake my head. “Can you call for help already, instead of harassing this goddamn button?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?!”
“Because I left my phone on the desk.”
Oh, that’s just great! We’ll sit here until someone realizes that the elevator isn’t working.
Let’s hope it’s just a temporary power outage, and that the security guard is not too thick-headed to figure out who recently got on the elevator.
Yes, he will definitely figure it out, he will call for help and soon someone will get us out of here.
What if he doesn’t? What if there’s electricity in the whole building, and only the elevator’s power supply went down? I glance at the camera in the upper corner. There is always a green LED on it. Now the LED is not lit anymore. Great, we are cut off from the world.
It’s getting stuffy. I can’t hear the hum of the air conditioner.
What if we run out of air? What if we suffocate before anyone even knows we’re here?
Out of nowhere, a jolt of panic comes over me. A wave of heat flushes my face, my heart pounds deafeningly, my chest feels tight.
I have to get out of here. Right now.
I get to the door and start banging it hard, calling for help.
“What are you doing?” Jan’s voice is calm.
“I have to get out of here.” I keep banging on the door, yelling, “Help!”
“And what you are doing now is supposed to help?” His voice is still so calm it only increases my panic.
“The guard will hear me and call for help.”
“We are around the thirtieth floor, Maria. Even if you started yelling through a loudspeaker, he wouldn’t hear you.”
“Aw, shut up. At least I’m doing something.” I grasp the gap between the sliding doors, but it’s too narrow to hook my fingers in.
“And now what are you doing?” Another annoying question.
“Can’t you see? I’m trying to open the door.”
“I see. To open the door. For what purpose?”
“What do you mean, what purpose? To save us.”
“Save.” His voice sounds different somehow, less stiff, as if…
Wait, is he laughing at me? I turn around and can’t believe my eyes. My panic disappears as quickly as it appeared, and my heart turns into a vanilla pudding. Jan’s broad smile is worth millions. It’s called an effective distraction.
“Maria, what you’re doing is absurd and doesn’t make the slightest sense.” He looks at me with indulgence as if I were a small child standing on tiptoes to get a piece of candy from the shelf.
The spell of a nice Jan is broken.
“You are absurd yourself,” I retort. “I at least try to save our lives, while you stand idly like a bump on a log and dry those flawless, even fangs of yours. You freaking oh-so-brilliant Mr. Manager,” I snort.
“Anyone else would try to be a real man. Use those muscles of yours and open the door, so we could leave.”
Jan shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter what you have here,” he grasps his biceps, “but here.” He taps his finger on his temple.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“All you have to do is use your head first. Elevators are designed like safety rooms.”
“So?”
“The safest place is inside. An elevator cabin with the doors open is a classic guillotine. It would be a shame if something happened to your pretty head, so leave them alone already. You won’t be able to open them yourself anyway; besides, you’re unnecessarily wasting energy.
We don’t have anything to eat or drink, and waiting for maintenance workers to arrive during an evening like tonight may take a while. ”
“How long is a while?”
“No clue,” he replies, then sits down against the wall.
It is rare to hear such words from Jan’s mouth. Just now, when he could show his brilliance and intelligence, he claims he has no fucking clue. I think I should record him. But I don’t have a phone. I’m cut off from the world. Trapped in an elevator.
I’m getting breathless again.
“What if we run out of air?” My voice trembles.
“We won’t.”
“How can you be sure? The air conditioning is not working.”
“There’s gravity ventilation in the shaft.” He points at the holes in the ceiling.