Phobia

Phobia

It was Friday afternoon. His last call. He just had to drop the
advertising
literature and samples on the doctors. These doctors took private
patients
only, he was told. Yet their surgery was in a dingy part of King's
Cross.

He parked his car and went in. On his right was a flight of stairs and
on his
left a lift. He looked at the lift, but decided to take the stairs as
his
doctor had recommended the exercise.

By the time he got to the first floor, he was puffing a little for he
was
middle-aged and fond of a beer, and a fattening city pub lunch. He
started
thinking about the huge amount of commission he would be drawing this
month.
And the holiday in Scotland next month with his wife. Yes life was
good.

He noticed that this floor was deserted and full of empty offices,
with
packing cases in some of them. However there was a little room with a
sink
and running water and it looked clean.

On the second floor all the doors were locked. Some had names on them,
but
there were no bells. He came to the third floor which he thought was
occupied
by Doctors Harley and Wright, but though there was a maze of corridors
up
here, most doors were locked, and the unlocked rooms were empty.

He walked down again slowly, checking each floor again on his way down,
and
on reaching the ground floor, hesitated a little. It was five o'clock.
He'd
had a hard week, and though he often worked in the evenings, he made it
a rule
to be home early on Fridays. But just as he was leaving the building, a
group
of laughing young men and women emerged from the lift.

"How can I contact Drs. harley and Wright?" he asked one of them.

"They have moved up to the fourth floor," he was told.

He decided to go back upstairs. As he was tired he stepped into the
lift and
pressed the button marked "Four." Under his arm was a packet of
samples. Pills
marked "Consolon." And a wad of glossy literature. He knew the pills
were
harmless. And mildly uplifting. When in a blue mood, his wife took
them. But
a salesman must be more enthusiastic than to describe them like this,
and he
began to run over his spiel in his mind.

Then he was jolted. The lift slowed down and came to a halt. Between
floors.
He pressed the button marked four again. No reaction. So he pressed the
button
marked "G" and was relieved to feel the lift start to go down. But he
felt
some concern when it passed the ground floor and sank nearly to the
basement.

When he tried the buttons again, none of them worked. There was a weak
light
in the lift, but nothing but blackness outside, but he judged, by
looking
through a small crack, that half the lift was below ground level.

He pressed the emergency button. Nothing happened. The four walls
seemed to
glower at him. Two hours later the lights went out. He screamed. No
answer.
It began to get colder. A pain throbbed in the left side of his
chest.
He began to have very strange thoughts.

"Was a terrorist group acting against drugs salesmen slowly withdrawing
the
air from the lift in order to suffocate him? Had his wife found a lover
who
had decided to assassinate him."
These thoughts added to his physical pain.

Friday night passed in terror. On Saturday he kept pressing the
emergency bell
at intervals without result. He tried to remain cheerful thinking that
some
cleaners would soon visit or his wife report him missing. But no-one
came and
by Saturday night he was feeling very cold and ill. He was still
conscious
on Sunday morning . Aching with hunger and thirst. He took out a
Consolon pill
and crunched it in his mouth. It tasted very bitter.

Then everything went black.

When he woke up he found himself in hospital. The cleaner who had found
him
early Monday morning had left a note. His wife had left some flowers
and a
nurse told him she was in the waiting room.
Apparently he was none the worse for wear and was soon back at work.
But he
found himself unable to use the lift. His secretary suggested
therapy.
This meant that he watched her go up in the lift, ascended the stairs
and
watched her come out. After a week he progressed to waiting for his
secretary
to arrive with him and ascending to his office with her. Alternately if
she
arrive first she waited for him

But it seemed that this closeness alone in the lift each morning did
induce
some of the feelings which his wife feared.

One evening she said, "Why can't you go up in the lift alone?"
"I've caught claustrophobia," he replied.
"I'll go to work with you one day and watch while you go up alone,"
she
suggested.
He felt very frightened but eventually agreed to this.

His wife met the secretary and they waited together while he went up in
the
lift alone. The treatment was successful.

So much so that next evening he was ready to go down in the lift alone.
He
waved good-bye to his secretary and gaily set out.
Then she heard a resounding crash. He was discovered dead five minutes
later.
The police are still searching for clues but as yet they have not found
out
who cut the suspension cables.