There are eight elevators in our elevator bay, each dutifully shuttling us corporate lemmings up and down between floors twenty-three and forty-four all the day long. I learned quickly to orient myself to their ding as they reach my floor, one for up and two for down. Four months of this, and it was only this morning that i realized that the dings are out of tune to each other; some ever so slightly but some a sour quarter step. I stood for a minute, humming one ding while waiting for the next, only to be greeted by two simultaneous elevators arriving to prove my point.

Afterwards, i found myself in the empty elevator wondering, Does anyone else realize that they’re out of tune? Is there someone we could call to have that fixed? Could they tune them to a chromatic chord? Is there someone out there whose knows all about this thing, this tiny detail that i have suddenly become so transfixed by as an escape from my dreary morning?

It’s either this, or sniffing markers.