14/06/2025
Elevator Silence, The elevator ride lasted 32 seconds.
Thirty-two seconds.
That’s all it took to plant something in my chest I couldn't name. I was heading home after a long day at work, headphones in, backpack slung low, the usual routine. As the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, there she was.
Aisha.
Draped in a soft beige trench coat, phone in hand, her eyes glanced at me once and then back to her screen. I took one of my earbuds out. "Hi," I said casually, like it wasn't a big deal, like my heart wasn’t beating a touch too fast.
She looked up and nodded, the briefest of smiles on her lips. "Hey."
The doors closed.
Silence. Except for the soft hum of the elevator motor and the faint scent of something floral and expensive that clung to her presence like a signature.
She stood with the kind of posture that told you she was always aware of how she looked - not in an insecure way, but in the way people who are always being watched learn to carry themselves. Controlled. Elegant. Slightly distant.
I wanted to ask her something - anything. How was her day? What floor she was on? Was she settling in okay? But nothing came out. I didn’t want to seem desperate or weird. So I said nothing. And neither did she.
I glanced sideways. She wasn’t scrolling on her phone anymore. She was looking at her own reflection in the elevator's mirrored wall -adjusting her hair, then her lips.
There was something about that moment. The way she paid attention only to herself, not out of vanity, but out of habit. Like the world had taught her that being beautiful meant constantly making sure you stayed beautiful. That being desirable required maintenance. A performance.
She was perfect. And I was invisible.
The elevator stopped at the 7th floor. My floor.
She stepped out first. I followed.
She turned left. I turned right.
But for those 32 seconds, I had existed in the same space, the same silence, the same air as her.
And somehow, that felt like the beginning of something.
Later that night, I replayed it in my head. Not the words -there were barely any -but the feeling. The unspoken possibilities. The mystery.
What does it mean when someone can make you feel so much without saying anything at all?
That night, I didn’t sleep easily. My mind was crowded with imagined conversations, alternative timelines, versions of myself that said more, did more, were more.
Aisha had no idea the weight of that elevator ride.
But I did.
Branislavjacob
Cc: 2025
