Gerald’s Bad Day: The Afternoon

Author’s note: This is the second part in the Gerald’s Bad Day series. You can find the first part here, Gerald’s Bad Day: The morning.

Looking at his watch Gerald sighed as he waited for the elevator. It was already nearing noon. Not only had he been late to work and hadn’t been able to get into his office, but now he was going to be late for his meeting with Mr. O’Connor.

The elevator took it’s time getting back to the fortieth floor. It might have been his mood, but Gerald felt like the elevator’s dings! were less enthusiastic than when he had first arrived.

Stepping on the elevator Gerald was suddenly paralyzed. His feet stuck firmly to the carpet. His hands were glued to his sides. His briefcase and notebooks fell from his fingertips.

Only his eyes could roam back and forth completely befallen with fear. Slowly, his body began to shake, then the elevator followed.

Being paralyzed was one thing. But now Gerald started to imagine the elevator cable snapping in two and then his body plummeting along with the rest of the cart down to his untimely death.

Though, being paralyzed through death, Gerald assumed it would mean it might hurt less.

The shaking continued and the elevator cable remained strong. The cart began moving upwards, past the fortieth floor. There were only forty floors in his office building. And the elevator kept moving. And moving. And moving.

Gerald closed his eyes and began to pray.

Suddenly, light filled his eyes.


Gerald opened his eyes and found himself staring through a porthole at a bright light that appeared to be coming from a spaceship. Gerald would have screamed if his vocal chords weren’t stuck.

It wasn’t an Apollo 8 spaceship either. It was like something out of Star Trek or Star Wars. Round in shape, black hull, big. Extremely big.

And it was in space.

In space.

Outer. space.

Which meant Gerald’s elevator was now in outerspace too.

The paralysis suddenly undid itself and Gerald fell backwards. The elevator continued its ascent. The spaceship Gerald had seen first was not the only one. Hundreds and hundreds stood poised above the earth. Fear clenched inside Gerald’s body as all the old science fiction movies he had seen replayed in his head. Earth exploding. People dying. People using water to keep the aliens at bay.

Gerald attempted to stand up, but the force of the moving elevator kept him cemented to the carpet.  The movement of the elevator was so fast he threw up in his mouth. Not thinking he could take much more, he almost wished for death. Only the curiosity of what the hell was going on kept his eyes open.

The elevator rumbled and began to slow. Gerald looked up just in time as the light disappeared from the elevator. He was now in complete darkness, ascending into a spaceship, and dizzy with vomit in his mouth.

His last thought as he passed out from the incredibility of it all was: ‘shit.’


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