Down (Part 5)

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Once the elevator opened, they all knew they were going to be on their own. Clifford took a deep breath. From this moment on, he was Amanda. He placed on her jacket and scarf, took a quick lunch, and returned to the building. It was going to be a long day. He had hoped to be going home; instead he was back here for another few hours. Plus, he had to take on an unfamiliar job with a body that wasn’t his own. Amanda had told him to just hold his head up high, just sit behind her desk, and glide through the rest of the day. She made it sound so easy, but he was sure it wasn’t. Could he really just slide into her life so easily? And what would he say if someone noticed if something wasn’t quite right?

Down (Part 4)

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The moment after they all decided to assume the lives of the people they appeared to be, the elevator started moving again. Clifford sighed, “I guess we’re really doing this. I hope I can pull off being you, Amanda.”

“I hope so too.” She replied.

“It’s not going to be easy for any of us.” Armando added, “But hopefully whatever caused this to happen reverses itself soon enough.”

And so then the door opened in the lobby, and the four of them headed out...

Down (Part 3)

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Figuring out who was who took a bit of time. Clifford found out that he was in the body of a woman named Amanda. Amanda was in the body of a man named Armando. Armando was in the older woman’s body, Laura. Laura was in Todd’s body, and Todd was in Clifford’s. If being in the wrong body wasn’t stressful enough for the small group, the realization that the elevator hadn’t moved an inch added to the stress.

There was a brief silence that Amanda finally broke, “It’s okay. We need to figure out a plan about what to do once we get to the lobby.”

“What do you mean?” Armando asked.

“She’s right,” Clifford interjected, “If we get down there and we tell people we’ve swapped bodies, they’ll think we’ve gone crazy. We’re going to have to pretend we are who we appear to be...”

Down (Part 2)

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Soon enough, a man in the elevator began to point at Clifford and yell.

“Give it back!” The man demanded, “That’s MY body!”

Before Clifford could even defend himself, an older woman spoke up, “And you have MY body. I doubt that poor woman is just as much a victim here as you are.”

“We’ve all swaped bodies,” The other gentleman on the elevator spoke up, “And so she’s technicaly not a woman.”

Clifford finally found a moment to speak, “I’m not -- I’m not a woman, or at least I wasn’t until just a few seconds ago. Maybe we should get to the lobby and sort this out. Is the elevator even still going down?”

“I think it’s stuck...”

“...And so are we.”

Down (Part 1)

Clifford didn’t have too many complaints about his job as a security guard in a midtown office building. Sure, he had to show up in the morning at 4am, but he would leave for the day just as everyone else was heading out to lunch. At the end of his day, he’d do go up floor by floor to do a pass of the building and then head straight down the elevator, which often filled up with people heading out to eat.

But one day as he headed down with about half a dozen people with him in the elevator, the light began to flash between the sixth and fifth floors then the shaft began to shake. The next thing Clifford did was look down at his hands; they were pale and feminine. He was holding a purse. He had swapped bodies with a woman he had been riding the elevator with, and he couldn’t even begin to fathom how it happened.