The Random Elevator

In our AB(Academic Building - the place with all the labs and research equipment), we have a special lift/elevator. It has a random behaviour but to some extent it is predictable. On an average, it randomly shuts down for anywhere between an hour to three hours over the fortnight. We don’t know when it will, but it does so at least once in two weeks.
I was very fascinated by the lift when I first went to college. We had our labs on most days (pretty hectic lifestyle I say) and, thus, I had the fortune(or rather misfortune) of using it regularly.

I had recently watched I Origins. It is a wonderful Sci-fi drama about the evolution of the human eye (it is mostly drama and less science). Anyways, I had just seen a scene where the protagonist and his wife are stuck in a lift. They try to get out of it, by climbing out. Unfortunately, the wife gets stuck midway through the lift and then the lift suddenly starts. The protagonist screams in agony as his wife is cut midway by the now working lift. That scene made me really scared of lifts for a while. Knowing that the lift in AB gets stuck many a times, I avoided it for a long time.

Then came one day when I had forgotten about the movie. I had a tight schedule and I was rushing to the lab after lunch. The instructor was very strict and he used to shut the doors to the lab after 5 minutes. Thus, in order to rush, I took the lift along with one of my friends. Suddenly, it got stuck.

We were between floors 2 and 3. I was scared. It was all so sudden that we didn’t have much time to process things. The first 10 seconds we screamed for help. No one was present around. No one listened. Then we got hold of our senses and pressed the bell button. The bell rang, but it took the guard about 5 minutes to reach us. Next he called an electrician. That guy arrived after half an hour. We were slowly getting more and more paranoid. Thankfully, the electrician arrived right before we wanted to cry for help again.
He opened the door from the third floor. He asked us to climb up the lift. I was getting more and more paranoid. I suddenly remembered I Origins and the scene. I got Goosebumps. But then I thought, “I have to fight this”. I climbed up and my friend climbed up after a few trials. I was so nervous, I asked the electrician, “What if the lift had suddenly moved down?”

He laughed and said, we turn the mains off before attempting a rescue. Thank God! At least someone has brains! Ever since that day, I don’t take that lift even when I’m late. Better be a few minutes late than late for life. Phew!