Last sem I had several classes in Melchor Hall 3rd Floor, so I always made it a point to use the elevator, saving me time (no, not time, since every time I reach the elevator the door would (mysteriously) automatically close when I was about a nanometer inside the chamber) and effort and sweat and panting and nebulizers. Yes, it didn’t exactly change my tardiness profile, but at least it kept me fresh and bouncy.
At the start of this school year however, the lift seemed destroyed, so I had to make do with the classical stairs, which had never felt more extended, exaggerated, stairs-ful, and downright redundant. Even if it promises to reduce my ballooning waistline and manhandle my Body Mass Index to the appropriate metric, I couldn’t care less. I want the elevator’s ambient temperature that’s fit for optimum metabolism. I love watching how my perspiration and tiredness gets usurped by the elevator’s air particles. I love overhearing people’s amusing rants and ramblings. I enjoy smiling to a million acquaintances and exuding warmth and enthusiasm to strangers. I want random talks with random people. I love breaking the speed-of-sound as I rush to the closing door, and getting satisfaction from the rare instances of successfully barging in, all the while simultaneously unreceptive and paranoid about the admiration from the awed folks (“Wow! How did he do that?”) and frown from the irate people (“What a waste of time.”). I am grateful for people pushing the <|> (instead of the >|< ) button for me and blissful having the opportunity to press that button for other people. I want the elevator, with all its efficiency, kindness-generation, and (false) connotations of bacchanalianism and couch-potatoism.
However, going to-and-fro my classes in Eng’g, I learned to accept that some good things come to an end (though I’m not quite sure if it’s to make room for better things). P&G Room, where my exam in Mat E 101 was held, could have been better travelled with a quick elevator ride, but I totally forgot that the elevator had already resurfaced, so I had to utilize my bipedality.
Needless to say, I was breathing like a horse when I reached the room on the fifth floor, and all calories from the pH-metered-jelly-infused hors de oeuvre from Yakal Open House quickly evanesced. (It didn’t help that I was also dehydrated since there was not a single unused drinking glass at the Engineering cafe. Screw you, Gloria’s Eatery (or whatever you are called), both of you.)
The exam went on for three hours. (It’s a good thing the Cannes Film Festival hakot-awards Iberian flick, The Orphanage (El Orfanatu?), didn’t exactly leave a scar on my heart. Otherwise I would be thinking about the thickness of its plot and its social and moral underpinnings, instead of surface tension of water-acid solution, Ellingham diagrams, and Newton-Raphson iterations.)
Now comes the best part. All the other students seemed to take the stairs. A small number flocked towards the elevator, and yes, I was part of that group. It was done unconsciously, maybe it’s because I usually take the elevator for my ES 11 class a year ago which was on P&G Room, which in turn was only a yard or two from the elevator. There’s Rendel (a classmate in Math 53 or Math 54, ah yeah, it’s Math 53), Jessa 2 (who’s on her way to Cavite, I overheard), Marie (who’s a heroine, as I shall reveal later why), some groupmate in Mat E 10 whose name I keep forgetting, some classmate in Mat E 131 who’s always happy, four or five other unnamed course-mates, and of course, Jessa 1, the second person I have known to have that name (there was a singer named Jessa right?).
Everyone was inside (I was second to the last person to enter the chamber) when that ominous sound rang. It occupied the room in no time, an ear-slitting siren. The message was quick and simple: SOMEONE HAS TO GO. For a second, no one reacted. They probably watched an award-winning movie and were now trying to delve into the socio-political implications, I don’t know. Then, everyone let out an unearthly laughter. Then, when everyone got tired of laughing, reality sunk in.
SOMEONE HAS TO GO.
Everyone looked down, afraid that if they made eye contact with anyone, it would be interpreted as a confirmation of being ready to go. I didn’t move. I grabbed the railing as though someone would grab me and push me out of the elevator.
Near the LCD panel is a more important spec of the elevator: capacity. It claims support of up to 1000 kg load or 13 people. We’re only 10 or 11 out there, and each of us is (ehem) far from overweight. And of course we’re not talking about Americans here, who are perhaps the sorts that the 13-people capacity pertains to.
Why would the elevator roar out? To scare us, intimidate us? Force us to lose weight when there’s isn’t an extra layer of adipose tissues to shed? Lower our self-esteem by eroding our self-image and consciousness? Nice try elevator, but we know ourselves better than anyone (or anything) else. We are not fatsos and we definitely don’t collectively weigh a ton.
Just when I was about to volunteer (myself or others), two persons had the most scientific (and craziest) idea. They got out of the elevator and sneakily went back in. Their movement was so careful and with utter precision that the decibel count was at its minimum. No one breathed. We knew (or plainly just believed or fervently hoped) that it would work.
Just when the two was back in their respective places, the sound came attacking our cochlea again. This almost reduced us to tears. (Yeah, like we didn’t expect that to happen.)
We looked at each other, asking for comfort. We laughed again. And again. And again. SOMEONE HAS TO GO.
“Yung nakasapatos,” I joked. Everyone laughed. At least half of us were wearing shoes. I wasn’t. I left my Chuck’s at Marikina. And I normally do not wear shoes on exams. Heck, I didn’t even wear them on my first job.
We laughed without end, pausing only to catch our breath. Then someone went out.
She was the single bravest soul in all of Mega Manila. Marie (or is it Mariz?) touched our hearts the very instant she moved and strided towards the door. I noticed her face, it was full of intent, of gladness that she was able to help. It was actually glowing and it would probably help her fend off ghosts as she takes the stairs.
Someday, I also would like to touch others’ hearts and set an example by following Marie’s. And that would mean another experience of (pseudo-)overload and weight realization.
Any problem only poses threats for you if you see them as such. The elevator would nullify your waistline-reduction schemes if you see it as a burgeoning antithesis to health and personality enhancement, instead of an efficient way to get from point A to point B, where you could get random conversations, instantaneous learning, stimulation, and acts of kindness as bonuses.
I would never quit using the elevator.
“I think smoking is bad for my health. Therefore I quit thinking.”
-Dexter Brylle Matos
