Reset

I just need to calm down and think this through. Julie attempted to wedge her fingers between the doors. I only dropped a short distance. If I can get the doors open, I’ll crawl out.

Her finger tips throbbed and the doors didn’t budge. Julie stepped back and looked at the control panel. She systematically began pushing every button she could find, but again nothing happened. She slumped to the floor and started to cry again.

A ringing made her stop and dig through her bag. She said into her cell phone, “Hello, hello.” The ringing continued. A phone symbol on the small door under the elevator buttons grabbed her attention. She didn’t notice before. As she opened it, the ringing became louder. She picked it up and said,

“Hello?”

“Please push the reset button,” said a robotic female voice.

“What? What reset button?” Julie asked.

“Please push the reset button. Goodbye.” The line went dead.

“No, no, please wait.” Julie replaced the receiver and sat against the wall beside the panel. “Reset button. Elevators don’t have reset buttons just like my life doesn’t.”

She laughed at the thought. That would be great – a reset button for my life. I’d fix the last few months. Julie stood up scanned the panel for a reset button. How did I miss that? There was a lit button with the word ‘Reset’ printed in black letters.

Julie pressed the button and the elevator moved smoothly upward, gently stopped, and the doors opened. It was not the office, but her own living room. Julie remained inside the elevator, but clearly saw herself on the couch talking on the phone. Without leaving the elevator, she continued to watch.

“What happened?” she heard the woman on the couch say. She held her forehead while listening to the voice on the other end. “I didn’t know she was sick.”That must be the day the hospital admitted Mom for pneumonia, she thought. Some reset. I’m reliving that awful day.

“What time did they declare Mom dead?” asked the woman on the couch. Wait. That didn’t happen. Julie stumbled back from the elevator doors and allowed them to close.

The phone rang again. Without thinking, Julie picked it up. “Hello?”

“Please push the reset button.” A pause. “Please push the reset button. Goodbye.” The line went dead again.

She replaced the receiver, stepped back from the panel, and wrapped her arms around herself. Shaken and wanting out of the elevator, Julie pushed the reset button. The elevator moved smoothly upward again.

This time the doors opened revealing a scene of a mangled car entangled in the grill of a big rig truck. The horn blaring. Flames flickered inside, outlining the image of a human body slumped over the steering wheel. That’s Jim’s car! But the man in that car couldn’t still be alive. Jim survived that accident and he didn’t hit any other vehicles. Julie gasped and covered her face. These ‘resets’ are getting worse not better.

The elevator doors closed, mercifully separating Julie from the vision. Shaking and crying, she slid to the floor and leaned against the wall. She wiped her tears with her hands and her nose on her shirt sleeve.

She crawled back to the panel that concealed the phone receiver. Julie picked the phone up. “I just want to be in the office,” she shouted into the receiver.

“Please push the reset button.”

Julie pulled the receiver away from her head and shouted. “Give me a human being you crappy machine.”

“Please push the reset button. Goodbye.”

After replacing the receiver in the cradle, she thought to herself, maybe I need to concentrate being in the office. Maybe that will fix things. She clenched her eyes shut, imagined being at her desk working, then pushed the reset button.

The elevator moved gently downward before the doors opened again. An identical elevator with a crumpled and bleeding body on the floor. The body had on the same clothes she was wearing. That elevator had dropped many floors and killed that Julie.

“NO, NO, NO!” Julie fell back into her own elevator and the doors snapped shut. She buried her face and cried hysterically. “I’m not pushing any more buttons. Please God, get me out of here.”

“Hey, Miss are you okay?” a male voice asked from above her. “Sorry about this. I’ll have you out in a jiffy.” Julie looked up to see a maintenance man peering down at her from the hatch in the ceiling.

“Are you real?”

“What? Of course I’m real.” He disappeared and then reappeared in the hatch. “There you go.” The doors slid open revealing the elevator stopped about a foot too low. Julie stepped out of the elevator and back into the reality.