I walked into the elevator on the 25th floor. There was no-one inside, and so I breathed an internal sigh of relief that I would need to bear no nonsense, but as the elevator descended, my anxiety grew. There are twenty-four floors where a possible tenant or owner might have joined me.
I was not surprised that the elevator became crowded, but I was disappointed. I do enjoy quiet, calm mornings these days. As the elevator filled, no-one spoke, and an entire family joined the descent. There were suddenly more occupants of the elevator at 6am than during the early evening, when most occupants of the building come home.
At the sixth floor the door opened and a tall man I had never before seen entered. He immediately looked down at me; he was quite tall and while I do not consider myself a short person, I was nowhere near his height. He did not hesitate, but rather he looked down upon me as I nodded a greeting and he started talking to me, as if we had chatted many times.
"You're not riding your bicycle this morning," he said.
"No," I returned.
"I see you riding that thing, very fast. You really move on that thing. You move like a bat out of hell."
"I guess the decline takes me," I said, wondering. "Have a good day."
I am beginning to dislike elevators.