7:45 am and I’ve just pressed the 19th floor button to go up to my dentist. He’s got an office in a swanky Yonge and Bloor address, upper downtown, whose lobby consists of 80s style floor to ceiling marble.
Like a stylized Ridley Scott scene of streaming light and isolation, I jab a button and the middle elevator door dings open. I enter the car, turn and press 19. As I step back from the panel I hear some rustling just outside the elevator. Someone is rushing to get to my cab, despite the dearth of free elevators at that hour of the morning.
Time. Slows. Down…
He crests the frame of the elevator as I reach out to the DOOR OPEN button. I notice two things: He’s carrying a Tim Hortons large coffee in one hand and a nice attache case in the other. The other thing I notice is that he’s going down.
Time. Slows. Down. More…
I see his left foot slip out and his whole frame lists to the left. His shoulder hits the elevator door frame, and probably saved him from going down utterly without support. Meanwhile, with his weight toppling left, his right foot gives on the marble floor and it’s inevitable. It’s a full on fall, people! I have a flash of YouTube videos of smoke stacks that should have fallen one way but comically, ironically fall on the foreman’s F150. But he’s still going down and I snap out of it.
His left knee hits the marble. He drops the attache for sake of the coffee. His left butt cheek is the next to hit the floor but he’s twisting fast enough to make it his whole ass.
My hand goes out. But I don’t know where to grab.
He’s on his ass fully now, torso inside the cab, legs out in the lobby. Incredibly his coffee is unspilt. I want to help him up but I stop as that I can sense he’s super embarrassed about the whole thing – I know I wouldn’t want to be helped. I then think I can take his coffee to assist in his righting, but then I feel that’s a bit too intimate of a thing to touch. He literally jumps up from the floor.
As the doors shut we make the usual noises two humans do when faced with a slip like this: “You ok? Sure? You took quite the tumble there…” etc.
“At least it’s Friday…” I offer.
“Can’t get any worse, right?”
2 thoughts on “The marble. It does nothing.”
man, you live across the street from a fun, freak dentist with a small practice. lose the marble overlords and go see the guy above the bank, dr. shillingford.
Well, if there was a dearth of elevators, it’s a good thing he caught yours!