The early morning sun gleamed into the windows of The Everglade Union Hotel’s bottom floor, as the elevator toned to signal arrival at the first floor. The first floor was a completely rectangular room with a front desk with three attendants all open for business. Toward the back of the room, opposite of the front circular opening doors, stood a single elevator with a silver glow from the reflection of the sun through the windows. A business man walked out of the elevator, suit and all, carrying a brief case filled with dozens of important documents and files. He paced to the front desk returning his room key and left out of the rotating doors. At the same time, he was leaving through the door, a short curly haired man entered. He walked straight to the elevator for he had already had a room. He walked to the elevator pressed the up button and waited seconds before the doors opened. He walked inside, turned around, and pressed the button for floor number 7. The elevator started to play its signature music as it rose up the shaft. The man had dirty shoes, therefore, when he got off, he left big clumps of dirt on the carpet of the elevator. When the curly haired man left, a woman with a hot cup of morning coffee walked in. The woman noticed the clumps of dirt on the floor and bent down to pick up some of the dirt when her coffee spilled out onto the floor and soaked into the carpet below her cherry-red high heels. The woman had reached her floor, floor number 8, so she walked out of the elevator. Another business man walked into the elevator after the woman left and noticed the mess that was left and tried to stay away from the mixture of dirt and coffee, as he pressed floor number 12’s button. The elevator began to hum out its music once again only before the noise of the elevator reaching floor 12 made itself known. He walked out at a fast pace, not noticing that he dropped a memo written on a sticky note. The elevator rested at floor 12 until someone from floor 4 called it down. A young girl with a bag of candy walked in. She snacked on a few pieces and then reached into the bag for more when the bag tore, and the rest of the candy dropped at her pink sneakers. She reached floor 1 when she exited the elevator. The doors closed, only to be opened again by someone entering the elevator to go to the top floor to go sightseeing, for he had a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck. He clicked the top floor button on the panel, and the door slid shut. The signature elevator music tuned immediately after the door shut. He placed his hand in his pocket to grab his room key to access the top floor. When he did so, his handkerchief fell out of his pocket and landed on the dirty carpet floor of the elevator. The wind blew fiercely into the elevator as it reached the top floor, where you could see the whole city skyline and all the commotion of the street. As he looked through the binoculars the elevator doors behind him shut and his binoculars started to get sprinkled with water, for a storm was going on during this time. The elevator was called back to floor number 1 where a man in a suit and fedora walked in soaking wet from the outside conditions. He walked to the front counter to receive a spare room key, for the one he held was wet as well and did not function. When they handed him his room key he paced over to the elevator and walked inside. His wet shoes flooded the elevator carpet with water, and his suit had water dripping to the floor. He got off at floor 14 where his room was stationed. The elevator was called again to floor number 1 where a janitor was working. The elevators doors slowly opened in front of his eyes, as he looked in awe at all the items that were left in the elevator. He felt bad for cleaning up the dirt, the coffee, the memo the business man dropped, the candy, the handkerchief, and finally the water. He thought to himself that everyone that had went in the elevator today has left their mark, and he didn’t want to ruin that. However, he knew that the owner of the hotel would most definitely fire him if he didn’t do his job. Sort of in a slow and sad matter he started to clean it up. By this time, it was already dark in the city. The storm had gotten worse, and people were warned to stay inside where it was safe. The moonlight glistened through the windows of The Everglade Union’s Hotel bottom floor. The light dimmed in the lobby for closing time.

The Message of the Story

 This story was made for the reader to understand how many people go through the elevator in a day and leave their footprint wherever they go. The different people in the story represented the different backgrounds that people emerged from. The first man in the story, if you noticed, didn’t leave anything behind in the elevator. This was done on purpose, for the reason of starting off the story with a clean feel to it and try to trick the reader that this was just a normal story. The curly haired man who entered second is an attempt to represent someone from out of the city, because they wore dirty boots in an upper-class hotel. The third person who entered was the very well-dressed woman who had the cherry-red high heels. When she bent down to pick up the dirt that the curly haired man left on the elevator carpet, she spilled her coffee on the ground to create a bigger mess or footprint on the elevator. Since she was so high class, she most likely could not afford to be late to whatever she had to do that day, so she left the coffee and the dirt in the elevator. The next person to enter the elevator was another business man, but this time, he left a slip of paper that had important notes on a sticky note. The man simply did not even notice that he forgot it, but if you read closely the story says that he stayed clear of all the other mess or footprints on the elevator floor. This was supposed to represent that he wanted to stay clean of all the other items in the elevator and wanted no part in the overall footprint. The next person to enter the elevator is the little girl with the candy. You may be wondering why she was alone in an elevator in the hotel in the first place, but that’s beside the point. I chose a younger person with intention for multiple reasons. First, to show diversity in the story and the overall message. Secondly, to make the whole elevator footprint scheme more effective and believable, because a young person doesn’t know any better than to leave the mess. The candy doesn’t represent anything significant, but young people like to eat candy, so it does make sense. The next person to enter the elevator is probably the most interesting of them all. The sightseer with the binoculars dangling from his neck. He was to represent that there is so much to see if you get out and see it, especially from great heights, as in the story he was on the top floor. The man with the binoculars dropped the handkerchief in the elevator, which was meant to wipe the binoculars if they got dirty or in the case wet with water drops from the storm that was occurring. The storm itself was meant to indicate more of a down or sad feel into the story, but even though it was storming there was still beauty in the city skyline which the man was looking at. The elevator music was thrown into the story quite frequently just to make the story seem more realistic and believable. The next and final character other than the janitor who entered the elevator was the same person as the first guy who entered the elevator at the beginning of the story, but before the man left, he was all clean and ready for the day. Once he entered the hotel again this time, as said in the story, he was soaked from the storm that was outside. He was weary and worn down from the day of work as it was starting to be the end of the day. The last person to enter the elevator is the janitor, who kind of ties the whole story together by realizing that everyone who has entered the elevator has left their mark, including the first person to enter the elevator because toward the end of the story when the water from his coat dripped on the carpet. The janitor was the one who understood how interesting that this was. He soon came back to real life when he decided he had to clean up the ‘’master piece” he saw. The real world can go by too fast for you to even realize things like this. Everybody who entered the elevator left their mark. This concludes The Elevator.