Small Talk

Does this guy ever stop talking? 

How many times have you asked yourself that question in the last five minutes? You’ve lost track. Doug seems nice, but all you did was ask if he had any tips for new hires, and now he’s droning on about the strengths and weaknesses of every one of your coworkers.

“And Tina—oh boy, you’ve got to watch out for Tina. She’s a notorious pen thief. She’ll never return any pen you give her, that’s for sure. And then there’s Greg . . .”

When was the last time he breathed? He hasn’t stopped long enough for you to interject, to politely excuse yourself, to say anything, really. So you just smile and nod, not wanting to make a bad impression on your first day. Come to think of it, you’re pretty sure he was already talking to himself while pouring a cup of coffee, alone, when you came into the break room.

“There’s Alyssa too, have you met Alyssa? She does good work so far as I can tell, but I swear it’s her who finishes the coffee every morning and doesn’t make a new pot. It’s either her or Jackson . . .”

You don’t actually register half of what he’s saying. All you can focus on is your desperation to escape the conversation. If you can call it a conversation, that is. You feel a sense of dread begin to pool in the pit of your stomach as Doug rambles on. He hasn’t touched his coffee. It must be cold by now. You start to worry you’ll be here for the rest of the day if you don’t find a way out soon. 

It’s then that the door to the break room bursts open and Jade, your supervisor, strides in. 

Doug turns at the sudden interruption, but somehow doesn’t miss a beat. “And here’s Jade! Good to see you, I hear you’re showing Jordan here the ropes? Well, they’re in good hands then—”

“Yes, Doug, that’s absolutely right. We’ll be going now.” Jade swoops in and grabs your arm, yanking you away from Doug. The man is still talking as the two of you hurry out of the break room: “Nice to meet you, Jordan! Make sure you keep track of all your pens and refill the coffee pot and—”

The rest of his advice is cut off as Jade slams the door closed. A glance through the door’s slot window shows you that, sure enough, Doug is talking to himself once more. 

Jade is looking at you oddly, something unintelligible written in her eyes. “Sorry about Doug. He’ll talk your ear off if you’re not careful!”

You laugh. “No kidding! Thanks for saving me back there.”

Jade smiles. That seems to have been the answer she was looking for. She leads you back toward your desk, which is luckily nowhere near Doug’s. Jade sets you up with the rest of your tasks for the day, and you sit down to begin your work, Doug fading from your mind.

By five o’clock, your first-day jitters have faded and you’re excited to have found a job that suits you. You like most of your coworkers, and the work is interesting enough to keep you engaged without sapping your energy. You begin to pack your things into your bag, pleased with how the day went. Alyssa, at the desk beside yours, does the same.

The two of you walk together toward the elevators. You pass Jade on the way out, and she waves.

“Have a good night, Jordan,” Jade says, striding past. “I hope we didn’t scare you away!”

You smile, returning her wave with one of your own. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be back!”

You reach the elevator and Alyssa presses the button for the ground floor. She seems nervous as you wait—fidgeting with the straps of her laptop case, checking and re-checking the contents of her purse. 

“Are you okay?” you ask.

She jumps. “Oh! Yeah, I’m all right, just anxious to get home, you know?”

You nod slowly, unsure of how to respond, when a door suddenly slams open to your right and a hush falls over the entire office. A jovial voice calls out, “Well, another day gone! I can’t wait to get home and relax after such a busy shift!” Doug strides confidently out the door. You catch a glimpse of a solitary desk in the center of an otherwise bare room behind him. 

“He gets his own office?” you ask. “I thought he was under Jade’s supervision, too.” 

You turn back to Alyssa and see that she’s frantically pushing the button to the elevator, muttering under her breath. “Come on, come on . . .”

“Alyssa?” You gently place your hand on her arm.

She faces you suddenly, her whole body tense. She darts a glance at Doug, who is making his way to the elevator and saying goodbye to everyone he passes. He ignores the fact that no one meets his gaze. Alyssa’s eyes find yours again and she nods jerkily. 

“Yes, he gets his own office. It’s the talking.” She goes back to pressing the elevator button, over and over again. 

Doug is only a few yards away now, and he finally notices you and Alyssa. “Ah, Jordan! How was the first day?” You open your mouth to reply, but he continues. “I remember when I first started here, even though it feels like ages ago! Not much has changed, if I’m honest. Like these elevators. They were just as slow back then! It’s what we get for taking a job on the tenth floor.”

You laugh politely as he launches into a story about how one of his previous coworkers got stuck in the elevator with their old boss for a whopping seventeen minutes. Here we go again, you think to yourself. How long do I have to be nice to this guy? As he prattles on, you keep a conciliatory smile glued to your face, wishing you were anywhere else.

A sudden stillness beside you indicates that Alyssa is no longer pressing the elevator button. She stands stiffly, as if frozen, while Doug directs his lament at the painstaking slowness of the elevators toward everyone within a twenty-foot radius. 

“Hey,” you say, quietly, drawing closer to her. “I know he’s a bit overbearing, but it’s just one elevator ride. And, frankly, I don’t want to be alone with him either.”

You half expect her to turn and run, but your words seem to get through to her. She laughs shakily. “Am I that obvious?”

“To me, absolutely. To him, probably not. I mean, he’s still talking, so he can’t be that offended.”

Her hands still tremble as she grips her bag, but when the elevator doors finally open, she follows you in. Doug crowds in behind her. As you turn around, everyone in the office is staring at you. But you can’t make out anyone’s expression before the doors slide closed once more. 

Doug is, of course, still talking, even as the three of you begin your slow descent. He stands on your right, while Alyssa taps her foot anxiously to your left. 

“You know,” Doug says, matter-of-factly, “I’ll bet if we had taken the stairs, we would already be halfway home by now. Isn’t that something? Why even bother with the elevator? Of course, I can’t imagine the state I’d be in if I took the stairs…” 

You try to catch Alyssa’s eye to share a mutual I-can’t-believe-this-guy look, but her gaze is fixed on the bright red numbers projected above the elevator doors: 09 . . . 08 . . . 07 . . . 

Thunk!

The elevator lurches violently. You fall to your knees, hands braced against the floor. The shaking only lasts a few moments, but as it dissipates, it highlights the fact that the elevator is no longer moving at all. It’s silent. Immoble. 

Doug, on the other hand, is neither. After letting out a yell at the sudden halt, he spews the longest string of curses known to man. You stand to find Alyssa clutching the handrail for dear life. You take her hand and gently pull her upright.

 “We’re okay,” you tell her. She doesn’t respond, instead staring up at the elevator doors. “We’re okay, right?” Still, Alyssa says nothing. You follow her gaze. The number display is frozen on a cherry-red 06.

Doug finishes his cursing and launches into his next monologue. “Well, I’ll be damned! And just when I was telling you about my friend who got stuck in here. I hope I haven’t cursed us…” He continues as he presses the button to open the elevator doors. They don’t move. He presses it a few more times, but nothing happens. He presses the call button. Nothing. All the while, he fulfills his self-imposed infinite word count by narrating his actions and their disappointing results.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be here for a little while,” he finally says. “Might as well settle down until maintenance can get to us. In the meantime, why don’t I tell you about . . .” 

You’re able to filter out his latest tale, though Alyssa seems to become more and more agitated with each word Doug says. She keeps shooting glances his way, fidgeting and breathing heavily. You wonder if she’s claustrophobic. She starts to shake her head and presses her hands to her ears.

“Hey, Alyssa, it’s all right. We’ll get out of here.” She doesn’t seem to hear you. Between her infectious anxiety and Doug’s general aura, you’re starting to feel nervous yourself. “Doug said the last time this happened they were only in here for twenty minutes. We’ll be okay for twenty minutes.”

This is, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Alyssa cries out and launches herself at the doors, cutting off Doug’s story (“Woah there! Someone’s getting a little antsy!”). She presses every button on the panel, and tears start to spill onto her cheeks when nothing happens. She even tries to pry the doors open with her bare hands, to no avail. 

You’re not sure what to do—your new hire training didn’t include how to comfort hysterical coworkers. Doug, for his part, cycles through various soothing words and phrases in his own attempt at calming her. Shockingly, it seems to work. The longer he talks, the slower Alyssa’s movements become. Doug steps forward and takes her by the shoulders, turning her away from the elevator doors. 

A sense of alarm creeps into your chest as Alyssa turns toward you. Her face has gone slack, muscles completely relaxed, mouth hanging slightly open. But her eyes . . . Her eyes look terrified. Her gaze is locked onto Doug’s, who continues with his calming words: “There now, it’s all right, we’re here with you, Alyssa, we’re in this together, you don’t have to be afraid . . .”

Alyssa’s arms hang limp at her sides. The contrast between her prior restlessness and current stillness is unsettling. Doug changes tactics now, starting a new story about how his coworker and their boss got out of the elevator. Apparently, it was the hottest topic in the office because maintenance caught the two of them making out when they finally got the doors open. Doug goes over the events in detail, growing more animated as he gets into the story. 

Your attention, however, is still fixed on Alyssa. As you watch, her eyes change, going from terrified to blank, like the rest of her face. She begins to drool. You want to go to her, but something tells you to stay away. As far away as you can be while trapped in an elevator, that is. You press yourself against the wall, the handrail digging into the small of your back. Soon, you feel a chill as Alyssa’s eyes narrow slightly, though the rest of her body remains still. She begins to nod along to what Doug is saying, her neck jerking in a mockery of motion. Then, she starts to actually look interested in his story.

Her nodding grows faster, more enthusiastic. She looks crazed, almost fanatical, and soon she is totally enraptured by Doug’s words. She even starts trying to interject whenever there is the slightest pause, though Doug hasn’t stopped for anything more than the quickest of breaths. Ultimately, she gives up on trying to find her own moment to say something, and instead makes her comments over top of Doug’s speech. And then, she is launching into her own story about how her friend had an affair with his boss as well, talking over Doug’s words simultaneously.

Alyssa’s metamorphosis horrifies you. The sight of her and Doug staring into each other’s eyes, babbling so loudly, so quickly, that you can’t even process what either of them are really saying. Spit flies from their lips as they hurl words at one other in an assault of unheeded dialogue.

“She was ten years older than he was—”

“—I’ll just say, his partner wasn’t too happy to hear—”

“—I think they’re married now—”

“—You should have seen the looks on their faces—”

“—Don’t you think Jordan would want to hear about this?”

In an instant, they turn the onslaught on you. You feel the effects immediately, the stricken expression dropping off your face as though it had been erased. No! You scream within your mind, but you are nothing compared to the intensity of their combined gazes, the buzzing energy behind their words. The same feeling of dread from earlier in the day returns tenfold, blooming in your stomach and quickly spreading through your entire body. Your skin crawls as you lose control, muscles going slack. Then, you feel the last semblance of consciousness, the fear you know is reflected in your eyes, leached from your body and mind. 

A thick, ugly silence shoves its way down your throat as Alyssa and Doug continue on their respective tirades, gesticulating wildly as they compete in a race to say the most words to you in the shortest amount of time. The words themselves don’t matter. What matters is your inability to contribute. A desperate need to say something—anything—begins to gnaw at the back of your mind. You don’t understand what the other two are saying, but you know you need to say something too. It has to go both ways. The words form gradually in your mind, dreadfully slow, sticky and misshapen as you struggle to piece them together. 

You watch the others, feel your head begin to nod, notice the drool on your chin for the first time. You still can’t feel your arms, so you don’t bother trying to wipe it away. Any moment now, they’ll stop to breathe, and then you can have your turn. Errant syllables hang in the air and beg for you to join them. You’re so enthralled by the sounds and the search for silence that you barely hear the banging coming from outside the elevator doors. After all, it is inconsequential to the newfound purpose you’ve discovered within the confines of the elevator. 

You think the opportunity is close at hand. The words find shape in your mouth, on your tongue, between your teeth, as you feel yourself freed from your immobility. Both Alyssa and Doug take a quick breath at almost the same moment, like two pendulum clocks becoming inevitably synchronized. Right on cue, you open your mouth to make your first interjection.

At that moment, the elevator doors begin to screech, a deafening sound that rips the words from your lips before you can say them. The doors slowly start to open. You throw your hands over your ears and crouch to the floor, shocked awake by the sudden noise. You see the others doing the same, their mouths still moving, though you can’t hear what they’re saying. You remain blessedly silent. The sound of screeching metal mirrors your panic as you fight to regain control.

You look up through the elevator doors. A small crowd of people stands on a concrete platform at shoulder height. You recognize it as the sixth floor of your building, you’d seen it just hours ago during Jade’s office tour. Jade herself is at the front of the crowd, her face grim. A few members of the maintenance crew hold the doors open, just wide enough for a person to get through.

Without a glance toward Doug or Alyssa, you launch yourself toward salvation, hoisting yourself out of the elevator and onto the floor above you. Jade helps you stand up, then grips your shoulders and looks directly into your eyes. 

“You’re not talking,” she says.

“No, but a few more seconds in there and I would be.”

She nods, then turns back to where the maintenance guys are hauling Alyssa out of the elevator. Sure enough, you can hear Alyssa chattering to the others: “Wow, that was intense! Thanks so much for helping us out, I thought we’d never make it out of there! I’d already decided I would eat Doug first, if it came down to that . . .”

Jade stares at Alyssa as Doug follows her out of the elevator, providing his own commentary atop hers. “It’s a miracle! And we were in there for two minutes longer than Roger. Have I told you about him? He got stuck in the elevator a few years back…”

Two of your new coworkers—you think their names are Tina and Greg—share a look with Jade. She pulls a keyring out of her bag, chooses a specific key, and hands it to Tina. She motions toward one of the darkened conference rooms nearby. You can just barely see into the room through a large frosted window set into the wall. Warily, Tina takes Alyssa by the arm while Greg does the same with Doug. Together, they lead the two loudmouths into the conference room before making a quick exit, locking the door behind them. Naturally, Doug and Alyssa never shut up during the entire process.

You turn back to Jade. You want to be angry with her, but you just feel numb. I almost became like them, you think to yourself. You meet Jade’s eyes, and she at least has the courtesy to look ashamed.  

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Jordan. That you almost . . . Well, I’m just glad we got to you in time.”

“Save it.” Now your anger flares. “How did he do that? Why is he still working here?”

“We tried to get him fired a few years ago. But when my boss called him into her office, well . . .” She shrugs helplessly. 

You shake your head in disbelief. “Couldn’t you use your own authority to get him out of here?” 

“I’ve tried! No one believes us! All we can do is try to stay away, watch out for each other. We make sure no one’s with him for longer than a few minutes. Otherwise . . . They end up like him.” 

That makes you pause. You can understand how Jade must feel, trapped in her own way, a victim of bureaucracy. You turn back toward the conference room. One of its occupants has turned on the light inside. “What will happen to Alyssa?” You ask. 

Jade takes a deep breath before responding. “I don’t know. Everyone else who he’s—” She swallows. “Who he’s altered has stayed that way. Permanently. My old boss ended up in a hospital, I’m pretty sure. But some of the others have found their way. Maybe she will too.”

You see the two shadowy figures beyond the frosted glass window gesturing animatedly to one another. In the quiet that follows, you can just make out the muffled sound of two voices rising and falling, but never once stopping for air.