Elevator PitchΒΆ
A short story, 2019
They had to keep replacing the elevators.
They were heavily used, no doubt. The Corporation was a sprawling entity, managing affairs across many states and countries, and the cogs within its vast machinations were the people who worked it all from the Headquarters building. Everyone worked for the Corporation, in one way or another, and those that managed to work from Headquarters were in it for life. They flowed up and down and sideways across the network of elevators that crisscrossed the building, day in, day out. In time, as the Corporation grew, the elevators were the place people let their minds wander unfocussed, safe in the routines built over decades, comfortable being led to wherever they were heading.
But minds, however feeble, leave tracks, especially as they wander. Occasionally, in the right light, these were visible, though most people ignored them as distorted reflections. But with time, tracks turn into trails, and the trails turn into entire landscapes carved across the ether. Landscapes anchored to the elevator.
And on some late evening, a lone traveler would be taking the elevator back up because he left his car keys on his desk, lost in thought while, unknown to him, circuits and fates aligned. The momentary flash of a moving reflection was a doorway into a vast foreign mindscape accumulated over the years, the detritus of cast away thoughts of every person that ever rode the elevator. Fragments of forgotten memories buzzed around, looking to land, and trains of thought sat derailed across the fields. Above, lost hopes were circling, hungry to feed.
On some late evening, a lone traveler would be found curled up in the elevator, with neither memory nor will, like an infant with a mind wiped clean.
They had to keep replacing the elevators.