Thy Name is Karma

It seemed a regular day in the office. Someone had come in to see B. and he was nowhere to be found. We assumed he'd forgotten or simply didn't care about the meeting when the phone rang. I answered it...

B: "Huff... huff... I'm trapped in the lift."

S: "Oh, right. Err... are you ok?"

The conversation went on, and I had to inform the person he was meeting that he was stuck in the lift just outside our office. I even checked he'd phoned the proper faultline from the lift phone. His response didn't fill me with confidence, so I phoned them after I hung up. But I didn't hang up quite yet...

During our conversation I thought he was sounding somewhat panicked on the phone. He's not exactly the Fonz when it comes to keeping cool, small things like an unsorted stack of papers can send him into a frenzy of emotions. I may, I thought, have been his only lifeline to the outside world, the only thing keeping him from thinking about spending an eternity entombed in the Charles Wilson building, forever wedged between the sandwich shop on Floor 1 and the carvery in Floor 5, and tormented by the smell of fresh cooking. So I summoned up all my high school crisis counselling and kept talking conversationally...

S: "Do you have something to read?"

There was a thick silence on the other end of the phone. Thick enough to tar the potholes in the M1 with. He inhaled for a lot longer than I thought was humanly possible before continuing...

B: "No not really. Well I do have your P60."

S: "Well, don't read that!"

B: "I should go."

S: "Don't worry - they should have you out within an hour. Good job it's not lunch time just yet."

Cue laughing from behind me...

Not long after this I phoned the porters and informed them that there were people in the lifts stuck. They sprung into action, which suggested he'd not quite phoned the right people. He got out after about 20 minutes, during which we talked with his visitor about how dangerous broken lifts can be. Only then did I remember I had a camera as he disembarked... bugger.