For demelzagirl

[lobelia321]

It was the worst day of Oberon Villiers' career but he didn't know it was the worst day until it was too late.

It started out like any other Tuesday morning, that is, reasonably bad, not unprecedentedly bad. The usual irritants awaited him at work: starting with the bulldog-like face of the downstairs receptionist, the endless wait for the elevator -- why was it always stuck at 3 for what was surely a completely unreasonable amount of time for this rush-hour point of time in the morning? -- and the subsequent crowded ride with fifteen other disgruntled and hurried colleagues, managers and minions. Fifteen plus one (the one being himself, Oberon) made sixteen, and sixteen was two above the person limit for this particular make of elevator. Oberon didn't say anything about it. He spent the minute-and-a-half it took the lift to creak its way up the cables of dubious reliability all the way to floor number six staring as if hypnotised at the sign just above the floor-button panel. 'Weight limit: 450 kg. Maximum number of persons allowed in elevator: 14.'

As the signal went 'ping' and people shoved past him at various interim stops, Oberon attempted to calculate the ratio of number of persons to weight limit in his head. If 450 kg was the weight limit, how many kilogrammes did that allow per person? You had to divide 450 by 14, but then he got muddled with his metrics because he had no idea how to test his result for feasibility. As far as Oberon was concerned, a man weighed on average nine stone or thereabouts. He had never bothered getting his kilogrammes and centigrades and any other terms beginning with deci, milli or nano sorted out. When the lift juddered to a halt at 6, Oberon stepped out with his disaffected tripod of wrinkles at the top of his nose firmly in place.

But this was nothing. This was mere trivia. Worse was to come, much much worse. Had Oberon had an inkling quite how much worse, he may have turned around then and there and tried to throw himself down the elevator shaft, squeezing his already haggard shape into the narrow slit between lift and floor like a superhuman suicidal noodle.

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Comments

[crazybutsound]

like a superhuman suicidal noodle.

I just loved that last sentence. Do'nt know why but the image was striking.

As for the rest, you could write the yellow pages and I'd still be amazed at your talent for stringing words together. Damn.