THE LIFT IS A SHIP

After I’d called the lift One and Two came in stood behind me, daughter, TD.
One said, ‘it was at eight then up to eleven so someone called it from eleven they must be coming down...I used to live here.’
Lift coming down
‘It’s so slow,’ said One, ‘isn’t there another lift?’
‘Thought you used to live here,’ said Two.
‘There’s one,’ said TD pointing to where, behind the reinforced glass, the stairs that went to the top of the block began.
One turned around, so did Two, ‘what? where?’ said One.
‘There,’ said TD, ‘it’s a manual lift,’ and laughed.

Lift - arrived - doors - opened - the get in - me and Friend between daughter and One and Two.

One said, ‘it’s a bit small in here.’
‘There’s always that space,’ said TD.
‘The coffin hole,’ I said.
Two said, ‘they’re going to be doing them soon...’
‘...anytime now...’
‘...yeh, six months each lift turned off...’
‘...there’s going to be a lot of noise making them bigger...’
‘...there’s room in the shaft...’
‘...they’re going to widen it...’
‘...and faster too...’
‘...they’re fast enough,’ said One, ‘how much faster they need to be?’
TD said, ‘if they were faster it’d be like in a sci-fi film when the ship goes into hyper-drive and the skin on your face’ll get pulled down as you go up,’ moving hands from forehead to chin by cheeks showing what he meant.
Silence...
...then
I laughed.