The Hallway of Endlessly Shifting Doors (And Occasional Existential Crises)

Mia had assumed that elevators were simple mechanical transports, but the one she discovered in the Department of Administrative Oddities seemed to have abandoned such mundane expectations altogether. It was a gleaming box of brushed steel, the type that evoked safety, efficiency, and normalcy—the very same three things she was least likely to encounter here. She pressed the button for the top and watched as the small digital display flashed "UP" with the sure confidence of one who had never been questioned. Nothing in Mia's existence could have prepared her for what ensued.

The doors closed behind her, encasing her within. The walls of the elevator began to ripple, as if liquid metal churned beneath their reflective surface. The air grew thick with the acrid scent of burning coffee and a faintly reminiscent scent such as that of papier-mâché sculptures half-dry. She coughed once, and a thin, wispy plume of mist that resembled ink curled around her, forming letters which spelled out, "Welcome, new attendee."

Standardize expectations in turn. Mia gazed at the buttons and noticed that they were no longer numbered floors, but labeled with intangible concepts: "Persistence," "Curiosity," "Monday Afternoon," "Lost Socks." Each one rested gently under her fingertips, giving off a gentle hum, as if checking to make sure she actually knew what she was choosing.

She pressed "Curiosity" gingerly, and the elevator bucked. It lurched… sideways. For a moment, she believed that she had pressed some hidden emergency button that physics had never even contemplated. The floor tilted slightly beneath her feet as she moved sideways along, walls stretching and shrinking, echoing the curving action of the shapes she had seen in Chapter 13. A ledge of narrow drawers projected out from the side, opening to reveal envelopes with labels to ideas she had not yet considered: "Regret," "Excitement," "Risk of Being Late." One drawer pushed out like a curtsy of introduction.

"Do not open," a voice appeared to whisper from the very metal of the elevator walls. Mia frowned. Her automatic reaction was, of course, to do the very opposite. She opened the "Excitement" envelope. A blast of scented smoke shot forth, coalesced into tiny waltzing dancers around her head. Mia dodged automatically, and the smoke formed a tiny, paper-thin wafer-like shape that curtsied, stamped the floor once, and disintegrated.

A low but unyielding voice spoke: "To proceed, understand time is neither linear nor kind." Mia blinked, crossing herself off on her own mental budget: Sideways elevators are dangerous to philosophy.

The ride continued, careening through airspace she could not even start to understand. The floor underfoot shifted between slick metal, rough carpet, and a checkerboard of what looked like discarded sheet music. Every step of the elevator's path seemed to have some tiny moral commentary.

When she reached what the buttons had labeled "Persistence," she could feel the entire elevator stop, and a panel opened to reveal a wee filing station, where itsy-bitsy forms were being filled out by hands that had to be impossibly small.

The forms hummed with rage as Mia passed by, growling complaints in voice-like whispers she could hardly hear: "Why are we always sideways? Why is this ink awful? Why is Monday?"

Her nod of the head was a gracious concession to their grievances, and she continued. More than halfway through the ride, Mia noticed a line of small mirrors hung from the ceiling. In each of them, she appeared differently: one wore a crown made of staplers, a second had ink smudges merging into runic symbols down her arms, and a third seemed constructed from forms stacked on top of each other. She tried to stretch up and re-tune them, but her hands slipped through as if the reflections were made of liquid paper.

A reflection winked, and she could have sworn that it had just submitted a review of her act, criticizing her reaction to the sideways movement, the envelopes, and the little filing clerks with unusually stringent requirements. The elevator lurched again, and the "Monday Afternoon" button flashed up without her having touched it. The walls bulged in a little, and there was a miniature landscape: a village square of the same size and shape as the one Form 13-H had enveloped long ago. Tiny villagers milled about, with no awareness of the hugeness of the machinery that loomed about them. Mia could hear their feeble complaints: "Too early for meetings!" "Why is there a constant flood of paperwork?"

"The pigeon is reading poetry once more!" She couldn't prevent a laugh. Even here, in this crazy, physics-warped machine, the identical absurd rituals she'd become used to within the Department persisted.

Routines, she found, were a kind of consolation, if one could define endless disorder as such. Abruptly, a knee-high panel creaked open, and there sat a minuscule, mechanical cat wearing a bowler hat. It purred with what she would later describe as "mildly accusatory tones," leapt into the air, and landed on one of the envelopes that read "Possibility of Being Late."

The envelope quivered, blushing, and Mia felt as if she were witnessing a miniature bureaucratic scandal unfold before her. She touched the envelope gently, and a tiny stamp pressed upon it: "Acknowledged." The cat nodded once and vanished into a hidden cubby.

The side-to-side pace continued, taking her through areas of the Department which no one had ever seen fit to name. A side hallway had wee stages upon which tiny actors performed elaborate reenactments of their deepest grievances. Mia watched a group of forms debate forcefully the ethics of rogue commas while another put on a wordless drama about the life and death of a misplaced pencil. The performance was captivating, and she almost didn't notice the warning: a tiny voice, as clear as a bell but entirely without body, said, "Only those who balance curiosity with patience may leave standing."

By now, Mia was accustomed to the elevator's mercurial sadism. She was aware that each obstacle—sideways travel, miniature performers, dancing smoke—was a lesson in wakefulness, adaptability, and above all, her willingness to accept the absurd as a necessary aspect of moving forward.

She leaned on the wall, keeping in her notebook of her mind every minor lesson:

Lateral elevators exist.

Tempus fugit can be bargained with.

Shapes can serve a metaphysical function.

Cats sport bowler hats for purposes incomprehensible to human reason.

Just as she was recording the fourth lesson, the elevator lurched suddenly and stopped. A gentle click echoed inside the metal door, and a new panel appeared right before her eyes.

It contained a single button, blank, with a soft amber glow. There was a note below it: "Press for revelation." Consequences à la carte. Mia paused, aware that every choice within this Department seemed to have depths she wasn't expecting. With studied reluctance, she pressed the button. The elevator surged spasmodically and then seemed to fold inward, walls folding in upon themselves to reassemble.

Mia was floating, as if gravity had taken off for lunch. Small letters danced around her, coalescing into sentences that briefly made sense: "You are prepared," "Do not worry," "Efficiency has been noted, your inquisitiveness recognized." And then, as suddenly as it had started, the movement ceased. She was back on solid ground, though the walls glimmered with a faintness, as if they winked at her. The elevator hadn't gone up, over, or side—it had deposited her in a room comprised solely of an idea: "Room of Necessary Observations."

There, desks floated in mid-air, each containing one thing of value: a single pen, a single envelope, a miniature model of a village square, a stack of vague papers.

Mia approached the first desk and took the pen. Simultaneously, a gentle whisper arose: "We recall your persistence." She stroked the next envelope; it quivered ever so slightly and folded itself up tidily into her hands. Even the small village square nodded assent, as if she knew her patience, her persistence, and her refusal to succumb to desperation. All of these were here to test her familiarity with the Department's logic, or perhaps its illogic.

A chair stood up to welcome her and was filled for her to sit. Mia sat down timidly. A desk drawer groaned open to reveal a tiny notebook, labeled: "Notes for Future Lateral Travellers."

She opened it and discovered elaborate directions, sketches, and commentary on the proper use of sideways elevators: "If the walls ripple, do not resist." "If miniature forms stage theatricals, observe and record, but meddle not." "If time appears non-linear, record your subjective experience precisely." She realized that someone—likely former participants—had recorded the chaos precisely so others could navigate through it.

Her own internal ledger book had only been given to a partner.

Minutes—or perhaps hours—passed as Mia experimented with every suspended thing. She discovered that the pen could write air when she gently mouthed a query, that the envelopes occasionally contained whispers of agreement when they were touched respectfully, and that the little villages could be coaxed into harmonious paths with just the right combination of patience, bowing, and random singing. By the time she had tallied the last of the floating desks, she was breathing at the relaxed, tranquil rate of someone who had survived a minor apocalypse conducted entirely within the walls of a tiny elevator and a metaphorical space of metaphysical offices.

Finally, there was a line of doors against one wall, each labeled with glowing script: "Exit to Reassurance," "Return to Chaos," "Step Into the Unknown." Mia considered her options carefully. In the Department, she had learned that each choice had levels of effect, each pathway a test of understanding, each outcome important. Taking a deep breath, she approached "Exit to Reassurance."

The doors opened, and she stood in the same Department of Administrative Oddities lobby as ever, but something was different. Everything was the same as it had always been, but slightly different: the stacks of forms were slightly straighter, the smell of burned parchment stronger, and the revolving door flashing at her with what could only be described as pride. She clutched her "Attendee Progress That May or May Not Exist" folder tight, knowing that she had survived a trial like no other. The floating desks, the sideways elevator, the whispered acknowledgments—these were now her growing experience in the Department's mercurial world.

Mia felt, with a funny frisson, that the journey through the sideways elevator had prepared her for tasks she had not yet encountered. The perverseness of the Department, its capricious cruelty, and its insistence upon bringing the mind to trial rather than the body had become a familiar cadence. She had mastered walking through the forms, the envelopes, the dollhouse villages, and even the metaphysical whispers of the furniture. Each step forward was a testament to the drills she had memorized: patience, observation, inventiveness, and most of all, being able to wrap one's arms about chaos as a paradigm.

As she stepped out of the elevator lobby and made her way to the next assignment, she saw a small envelope on top of a table she hadn't remembered seeing before. It contained just one word: "Congratulations." Mia picked it up and smiled, and opened it with caution. There was a single sheet of paper with elegant script: "You understand more than you know." Move on. A small, mechanical bowing thing suddenly sprang out from behind the envelope and went into the wall. Mia tucked the note into her folder, knowing it was both souvenir and bribe.

She glanced around the Department a final time, observing the tiny ripples in the walls, the gentle hum of stacked forms, and the thin sheen of reality always in movement. The sideways elevator had been a lesson in adaptability, a metaphor come to life, and a proving ground she had now conquered. Every oddity, every teeny drama, every whispered instruction had been on a vetted test plan. She changed her stance, refolded her folder, and moved forward with purpose, prepared for whatever absurd, bureaucratic, and marvelously irrational hurdles came next.

Mia had traveled the sideways elevator. She had survived the floating desks and miniature performances. She had navigated politely through forms, negotiated with envelopes, and understood the delicate line between patience and curiosity. Above all, she had learned that the Department's lessons were limitless, each stranger than the last one, yet each doing it again because it had to do it again.

Taking a final deep breath, she prepared herself for the next step—cautious, self-assured, and utterly captivated by the strange world in which she had entered.