A very bad weekend

Saturday - 1:15 pm

I don't have to panic.

It happens. It always happens. The elevators freezes, then you push that little yellow button with the bell on it and someone lets you out. Simple and easy. Even though the little button is a touch screen stuff that doesn't seem to show signs of life.

But that's not it, is it?

There is certainly someone on the other side who is solving the problem. We just don't know, because we're stuck here without being able to communicate with a living soul. Because the elevator display looks dead but our constant clicking in the last ten minutes must have worked.

Of course.

Oh my God, I'm hyperventilating.

«I'm sure someone is coming, don't worry.» I hear murmurs and when I turn around I see Flavio Moreno staring at me with a staid and serene air.

Uncertain if the incessant pressing of the emergency button had worked, we also pulled out our cell phones to discover that his - hyper-technological, ultra-light, with a waterproof screen and go figure out what other devilry - is completely discharged, and my - very heavy, anonymous and old of a dozen models – has no signal. To be honest, I stared at it for a few minutes with the hope that some notch would appear miraculously and still now I hold it in my hand like an amulet, who knows if it rings suddenly or gives us some brilliant ideas to get out of here.

«Yes sure.» I answer but in the meantime I feel the palm of my left hand squeezing the shopping bags and that of my right hand soaking the smartphone cover with sweat.

«These elevators are programmed to automatically arrive at the floor in the event of a breakdown and have air reserves in case of need.» He keeps going and I just nod with as much conviction as possible.

Because he must necessarily know these things. He is the boss, right? And bosses know how elevators work. So I should relax and wait. As he does. And after all, he will surely have someone on the other side who will give the alarm, right? It's not that someone like him disappears and nobody says anything. He will have... what do I know... I look at him fleetingly. Was he going to a tennis match? Or in the pool? Or in some exclusive gym? Surely someone – a girl maybe - will be waiting for him and will give the alarm not seeing him arrive and not being able to contact him. And besides, it's not that we are really alone in the building. There is the doorman and there are those three or four at the desk and sooner or later they will have to go home, right?

Yet, how is it that I can't get from my head the image of us found dead on Monday morning, when the weekly activities will resume? It's not that one imagines his own death so often. Maybe you think about it. Sometimes. In your heart you hope to be one of those over a hundred years old who are interviewed now and then on TV, all sprightly, who rattle off tips on how to get to their venerable age. And if that's not the case, one imagine a heroic exit from the scene. I don't know... saving the world or a child or a dog from a raging machine. You certainly don't expect to end your days locked in the elevator of your office, wearing a pair of old jeans and a loose jumper with a zip. If I had known, I would have opted for a different outfit.

And that's not the point anyway. The point is... ok, wait. I have to drop it, okay? I have to turn off the brain. Even if only for a while. After all, we have even been here only for fifteen minutes.

I begin to look around. I hear the faint hum of the neon lighting up the elevator. The steel of the walls is slightly shaded and, on closer inspection, even slightly streaked in some places. The elevator doors, on the other hand, remain heavily in place. Closed.

Flavio Moreno adjusts the bag string on his right shoulder and begins to drum the fingers of his left hand on his leg. He retrieves the cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans again and gives it a new shake. Anything. It stays off.