(Warning: the characters and incidents are not coincidental but an actual experience!)
“Sis, we are done for!”, my brother breathed into my ears fearfully. I looked at him to find his pupils all dilated and his face white to his nosetip. To be sure, I had goosebumps all over my hands too but I wasn’t going to admit it to my brother. Not yet. After all, he was the one to look after me, not vice versa! I’m younger! Okay, before going on with my story, let me get you to the instance we were in…
It was Onam break in September 2008. I had just joined Medical college and my brother, who’ was his final year in Engineering had his vacation slot the same as mine. Our parents had sprung a bombshell surprise on us one month back. “Kids, guess what? We are going for a tour to Malaysia and Singapore for a week!”, they said. Oh my! Felt like i could dance on Cloud nine! On hearing the news, my brother broke into a ridiculous war-dance clutching me and tracing circles on the floor till we were dizzy. Vacations came and the much-anticipated tour day arrived. It was our first tour overseas so we both were overjoyed and there was a bounce in every step. The first destination was Malaysia and we were staying in Hotel Grand Continental in Kuala Lumpur. And that’s exactly where this story begins..
It was the final day in Malaysia and we were due to fly to Singapore that morning by the 11am flight. We were having breakfast in the dining arena when our tour guide came in smiling and told, “All packed? We’ll leave and hour early than required that we don’t run into any last minute rush at Customs.” Dad delegated me and brother to fetch our luggage from our rooms above and bring it to the lobby while they checked out. We got up and I whispered, “What’s the need to go this early to the airport? All we can do is die of boredom waiting there!” My brother shot me a warning glance and headed off to one of the many elevators in the lobby. I duly followed him in. He pressed the lighted button showing 6th floor and the lift began its ascent. We were lazily enjoying the soft background music when suddenly the lift gave a shudder and a strange swaying set in. I could feel that it had stopped moving. The music played on merrily as if nothing was wrong but the panel showed us we were stuck in the middle of 3rd and 4th floor!
He was composed initially, telling me, “Could be a minor problem, it’ll move soon.””Yeah”, I said uneasily, not feeling assured at all. The lights now began to flicker in a pattern. Heart hammering, he pushed the Alarm button down hard. Immediately a loud screeching bell shattered the music and began tolling on endlessly.
A male voice responded from the microphone over the bell, “This is the Concierge. May I know the situation?”
“Help!! We are in Lift no 4 stuck I think between the 3rd and 4th floor!” yelled back my brother.
“We will be assisting you shortly”, said the male voice and went off the hook. Huh? Shortly?? How long was short?? I was amused by the irony of the situation. Here we were, stuck in an elevator, in the so-called grandest hotel in KL city! And, our parents might not have known about our plight and our whole tour group will be stalling for time because of our dilemma!
“Atleast I’m not alone!”, said. I was feeling glad that I was a comfort to him when he slyly said, “If I’m going down, you’re going down too.. Haha!” Whew!! He was positively grinning at a situation like this! I gave him a shove and turned away. Time certainly wasn’t genial that day; twenty minutes ticked on and worry began to gnaw at my insides. I could see that he was worked up too. We were about to press down that bell again when the lift gave a sudden jerk and a lot of metal-on-metal mechanical sounds were heard accompanied by voices shouting instructions in English and some other gibberish language. The electricity supply suddenly went off plunging us in darkness. I was reeling back to similar scenes I’d seen in English movies of being trapped in elevators! Claustrophobia began to grip me with its icy fingers. We was surprised how a tense situation made us forget the omnipresent brother-sister war and knit us close together.
Finally, lights flickered on and the music began playing softly. The wretched elevator glided down smoothly as if it was the finest in the world and came to a gradual stop at the Ground floor. The multiple doors slid open and we stared out at a sea of people with anxious faces, the most obvious of course, our Mother who had literally fingermarks on her face. She darted forward and gave us a bear hug. My brother was fast being his usual self now. He demanded that we should take this issue up with the Concierge seriously. “Dad, think about what we went through!”
“Well, you guys deserved it for not using you eyes”, said my Father sternly and pointed to something above the lift double doors. Following his finger with our gaze, we both stared in horror at a big sign in red saying : OUT OF ORDER – DO NOT ENTER!
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