Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Thirty Seventh Floor

On the day the elevator got stuck on the 37th floor, Jeff's life was forever changed. His journey had begun just two floors above , at the 39th floor. Had he been superstitious, he would have remembered that 39 is three times 13. But he wasn't superstitious, and on top of that, he wasn't very good with math either.

But the fact that he wasn't good at math, and the fact that he wasn't superstitious, had nothing to do with the fact that the elevator got stuck on the 37th floor.

The reason the elevator got stuck - although he didn't know it at the time, and, in fact, never found out - was that a technician (who had been working in the elevator shaft while eating his lunch) had inadvertently dropped an apple core into the works.

But Jeff had no way of knowing that. All he knew was that he was stuck in an elevator with a four hundred pound man who dealt with the stress of their predicament by singing The Star Spangled Banner at the top of his lungs.

Offkey.

It was actually Jeff's fault. The man had tried to strike up a conversation with Jeff, and although Jeff didn't really want to talk, he felt it was necessary - under the circumstances - to be polite. So when the man asked him what he was planning to do that evening, Jeff explained that he was going to be singing the National Anthem at the Red Sox game.

This, of course, inspired the impromptu (and offkey) concert which lasted for six hours straight. Even worse than the fact that he was singing off key was the fact that he was singing all the wrong words. He had an uncanny ability to mix together song lyrics in a way that no author ever intended.

Later that afternoon, when the elevator was finally repaired, Jeff and his overweight companion were released into the outside world. Jeff, with butterflies in his stomach, appeared before thousands of live fans, and millions more watching by way of television.

Oh say can you see by the land where my fathers died
What so proudly we hailed by purple mountains majesty
Above the fruited raindrops keep falling on my...

As I said, on the day the elevator got stuck on the 37th floor, Jeff's life was forever changed.

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