Narrator: Adam L. | California, USA
I know Americans usually say elevator. My mum was English, and I still say lift sometimes. That’s what I called it when I told her about this, and it’s the only word she remembers from the conversation.
I lived on the sixth floor. Coming home from work, I pressed six and looked down to answer a text. The doors opened onto a kitchen.
Yellow cupboard handles. Brown squares on the floor. A little chipped plate on the counter with two slices of tomato on it. It was the kitchen in the house my parents sold when I was nine.
A radio was playing somewhere to the left. I could smell hot dust from the electric heater that used to stand under the table. My school bag was hanging from a chair.
I pressed the close button so hard I hurt my thumb. Someone out of sight said, “Adam?” in my father’s voice. He wasn’t dead. He was living in Arizona, and his voice hadn’t sounded that young in years.
The doors closed. When they opened again I was on six, facing the usual stained carpet.
Mum thinks I nodded off standing up. Maybe. I phoned Dad the next day and asked him what he’d put in my sandwiches when I was little. He couldn’t remember. I hadn’t expected that to upset me as much as it did.
