Elevator Confinement

Do you hate stairs? Let me guess, you love the elevator, am I right? Let’s chat elevator talk. I would much rather take the elevator than climb up those thousands of steps to campus. You get all sweaty, you’re out of breath, and you wish to never experience that again. Therefore, you choose to take the elevator. Sure it’s awkward, sharing a 4.5ft X 6ft X 7ft box with a complete stranger. Both breathing each other’s oxygen and sharing the space in that small box. Sometimes smashed up against someone you do not know. But it beats taking the stairs, doesn’t it?

Waiting outside of the elevator. I look right and left, perfect, no one here. 4… 3… 2… I check my phone, plenty of time to get to class. My elevator has arrived and two people walk out. I enter quickly and press my floor number as well as the “close doors” button. A hand appears out of nowhere and stops the doors from closing. A fellow student walks into the elevator with me. I try to look at my elevator companion without turning my head. I utter not a sound when accompanied in the elevator. I would never think to strike a conversation with this stranger in such a confined box. Why? Why am I so shy to make small talk with my elevator companion? I am not generally such a shy individual, chatting with others usually comes easily. But when inside that box, I would never make a sound. What if I were to get stuck for hours in that elevator with that one stranger? How do elevators make you feel? Does your instinct to communicate shut down when those elevator doors close like mine do?

-Nena Smith