Angie was just leaving.
She opened the door of Rodger’s apartment to a rush of hallway air released from its stagnant existence to the world outside the open porch sliding-glass door.
Like any night, it was a toss-up between stepping off said porch for a quick and permanent introduction to the concrete 13 floors below and said front door.
She shouted goodbye to Rodger, still high and half-comatose on the bedroom floor and let the door slam shut behind her.
She was shocked by the steel elevator-button plate, just like every time. Since she was high, the electricity kind of felt good going through her hand and up to her elbow. Angie imagined the blue icicle then shooting across to the wall opposite, her body simply a conduit to the eternal living thing; this energy that never seems to just stay with her, it always must go on, moving on to the starving kids in South America, the children that pick the poppies that then fuel her existence.
The elevator door opened. Angie entered and hit P like she had a thousand times before.
With an uncharacteristic lurch, the lift began descending.
For about 2 seconds.
Then it stopped, with yet another uncharacteristic fit of violence.
Angie, our hero, high as a kite, then had about another 10 seconds to figure out what to do. The normal thing would be to hit the red button. Whatever the red button does, surely this was the time to hit it.
But in 10 seconds, heroes can’t think of this sort of thing. Heroes, thanks to special cinematographic techniques now employed in Hollywood, have full minutes to jump up, spin around, and kick the teeth out of the bad guy. Or, in this case, get stuck in an elevator and hit the red button.
Hit the red button.
The elevator then began shaking. Left to right, then back to the left. Up a little. Then a pause.
You know those fast elevators they have exclusively in New York City? Yeah. Multiply that by your favorite large interval.
When you are enclosed in a free falling container, you float. It really is quite literally NASA training.
The problem is this plane doesn’t gradually regain altitude.