All Dressed Up

Here's the funny thing about elevators. They make us uncomfortable to be human. We're packed like sardines into these metal tins and then shuttled from destination to destination. They combine the worst aspects of cars and public transportation, the close quarters and the strangers. At worst, you stand shoulder to shoulder with the unfamiliarity, jostling each other with purses and bags, occasionally jabbing with stray elbows or stepping on another's toes. At best, you stand apart at opposite corners of the space, like boxers preparing to square off, staring deliberately into the mirrors, but sneaking glances out of the corner of your eyes, sizing up your opponent, uneasily wondering who will be the first to attack. But is that really better? That subtle yet uncomfortable antagonism. And then there's the silence, that unbreachable, unbreakable silence that seems to accompany elevators. Sure, they play Musak in the background sometimes to try and fool you into relaxing. But the music is elusive, like water running though your fingers, it passes through one ear and out the other, gone before you even recognize it. It is a sad attempt to cover up the cold truth of the unfamilarity of strangers. And even if you aren't alone and you know the people riding with you, the voices are always too loud and the echo always too hollow. It seems to make the quiet preferable with the way the elevator carves out the meaning of any conversation.

And that's the really funny thing about elevators, the inevitable silence and uneasiness of strangers, when you practically aren't strangers at all. You breathe the same canned air and wait with the same tension. You gain intimate details from each other through stolen glances. The run in her tights. The stain on his tie. The affluent tap of her leather shoes and size of her purse remind you that she's richer than you'll ever be, or maybe simply more proud of the fact and the wrinkles that crease and fold his forhead gather shadow in the harsh light, solemn tokens of a rough financial year at work. The harder you look the more you can see in these strangers. Her make-up is smudged and her hair is slightly askew, although she seems almost to polished for these mistakes. His hair glitters with silvery gray in the light, almost distinguished until you notice the unshaven scruff around his thin mouth, the shake in his hands, and the darting of his eyes. You can looks so close, almost as if it is a window into these strangers' lives. But she smells of his cigars and lust and she wears her shame closer than her pride. And he looks at her much more intently than you and you know that the glint in his eyes is a hunger for more than money. The doors open and they step off together. And that's what makes elevators the most ingenious and awkward invention known to man. Our human curiousity compels us to look at these strangers, size them up, compare, speculate, judge. We looks so close into their appearances to see what lies beneath them. We think we see a window into their lives, but as we look closer we discover it's less of a window and more of a mirror. We look deeply into their flaws only to discover our own glaring back at us. We always make the mistake of looking too intimately into their lives only to discover that strangers really aren't that strange. The people who step on the elevator as aliens become human by the end of the fifteen minute ride to their destination. And we find ourselves uncomfortable being human.

Done