Never Walked In High Heels

            OK so… its 8:30 in the morning and I’m rushing through the train station trying to reach the 8:38 to Norwich. It’s pouring rain outside and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Naturally, I think “good, glad I got all the bad luck out of the way.”

              Or that’s what I was bold enough to think.

              As I swiveled into the elevator a priest comes in behind me. I know who he is because he’s in full garb. I quickly start off: Dear Lord please don’t make him start praying to heal me. I never know what to say when they start praying… He gets off at the next floor without even ‘God bless.’ Apparently he’s not on duty yet. I go down one more floor to get off myself. At least in theory that’s what’s supposed to happen.

              Once down to my floor I am met by a large lump. I stop dead. It’s completely blocking my path to get out of the elevator. I can’t move it myself. What a stupid and unthoughtful place to leave stuff. If I ruled the world there would be none of this…  My electric wheelchair bars  the elevator door from closing as I look around the ticket hall for someone to move the obstacle.

              “Um… excuse me, sir…” I flag down a security guard and do my best damsel in distress act. I can still make the 8:38 with very little luck needed. Or there is the 9:08. I laboriously do the math in my head. I haven’t had enough coffee to do higher mathematics as of yet. I need my morning hot chocolate. The guard comes and starts to move the pile of rubbish out of the elevator frame. Then, at the exact same time he and I come to the exact same realization.  

              It’s a corpse.

              He drops what we now realize to be an arm and I jump back into the lift without foreseeing that this action will make the impatient door shut. The guard is now leaning over the body trying to stop the door from closing because, of course, he doesn’t want anyone else to come down in the lift and get an early morning surprise. Without thinking, I pull the emergency stop button which makes everything better for about two seconds. Then the elevator alarm sounds thus bringing this situation to more people’s attention.

              There is nothing in all my years that has even begun to prepare me for this situation. I don’t think that there has ever been a Miss Manners column to date about what the classy thing to do is once you have become impeded by a corpse. I begin to think two things. First I feel sorry for the poor man who has died in a London train station during the wee morning hours. And second, if my mother ever makes me take the etiquette lesson she’s threatening me with, I am so asking about this in class.

              By the time we’ve cleared the corpse out of the way, I’m being bombarded with questions by other station staff. Why is he there? How long has he been there? Do I know him? Will I come down to the office and answer some questions?

              “I don’t know anything. The elevator door just opened and there he was!” Some brilliant officer commented that it seems like an unlikely story. Yeah, you’re telling me.

              For several weeks now I’ve been trying to come up with some higher meaning for the whole incident. I keep thinking this must be a metaphor for something. But I’ve had no luck with coming up with an answer. Life just is messy and sometimes you don’t know what file to put something under. Was it tragic for whoever he was? Was it comedy? Can one negate the other? What am I supposed to be feeling by this? Sometimes in life there is no acceptable response. Even Emily Post might be flabbergasted by what is there once the door opens.