F-0025 The diary of someone who started getting off the elevator at the thirteenth floor

October 17 (Saturday)

Writing this down before I forget. Though three days have gone by already.

Wednesday night I came home on the last train. Somewhere past the thirteenth floor the elevator stopped once, and the doors opened. It was a corridor. The night lighting was on, and the build was the same as my floor. In front of someone’s door stood an umbrella.

I thought it was someone else’s floor, and I stayed in the car and waited for the doors to close. That is what I told the caretaker, and it isn’t a lie. But for the first moment after they opened, I thought it was my floor. I was digging in my bag for my key, and I think the toe of my shoe was over the sill. It wasn’t that I thought better of it. There was a smell like after rain, and my foot stopped. It hadn’t rained that day.

It was only after I reached the fourteenth floor that I realized I couldn’t remember whether a button I hadn’t pressed had been lit. Whether there was a floor number on the wall outside the doors — I can’t remember that either. On every floor there is a plate with the floor number on the wall facing the elevator.

October 20 (Tuesday)

I told the caretaker. I expected him to be surprised, and he wasn’t. He asked, between which floors was it, and when I answered that I thought it was between the thirteenth and the fourteenth, he wrote something in a small notebook with a ballpoint pen. The inspections have found nothing wrong, he also said. That was the end of it.

As I was leaving he said, best not to come home too late at night. He said it the way you’d make small talk.

October 28 (Wednesday)

These days I don’t let myself get off as soon as the doors open. The indicator in the car says fourteen. Even so, I look at the number on the wall, confirm it — fourteen — and then get off. Some days I have said it out loud. There was no one else aboard, so no harm done.

Not just my own floor, either. When someone from a lower floor rides with me and gets off partway, I look at the number on the wall whenever the doors open. Sometimes their back is in the way and I can’t see it. Then I press the door-open button again, look at the number, and wait for the doors to close. It is a few seconds, and the few seconds are long.

November 7 (Saturday)

Last night I couldn’t find the number on the wall. In the place straight ahead where it should have been, there was nothing. I blinked, and it was there as usual. Fourteen. I think I just missed it. I was tired, too.

After I was inside, I locked the front door twice over. I know there is no point.

November 26 (Thursday)

I have decided something. On late nights, I get off at thirteen.

If it stops between the thirteenth and the fourteenth, then as far as thirteen it shouldn’t stop. Nobody told me so. But once I had decided, riding got a good deal easier. I get off at thirteen and take the stairs up one floor. It’s exercise, too.

I have yet to meet anyone on the stairs. They are kept clean, and still they don’t feel used.

December 15 (Tuesday)

The stairs are twelve steps, twice, with a landing between. A fire extinguisher, and a small window. Outside the window is the wall of the next building. The landing’s night lighting is the same color as the corridors’ — I learned that for the first time. Ten years in this building, and there were still things I didn’t know.

I have made it a rule not to stop on the landing. I can’t put the reason into words very well.

December 28 (Monday)

Last working day of the year. This year had a lot of late nights.

Friday night, it felt like the first flight had more steps than usual. I wasn’t counting on purpose. It just didn’t match the count my feet remember. I didn’t go back to count again. Past the landing, the second flight was the same as always.

Once the new year comes, I mean to stop minding it.

January 16 (Saturday)

The year turned, and the late nights have thinned out. I haven’t run into that stop again, not once. The caretaker is leaving in the spring, I hear. I learned it from a notice on the bulletin board.

The habit of checking the number on the wall before I get off has stayed. For now, I don’t intend to cure it.

Today, too, it was fourteen.