It had been a very eventful day indeed. We had visited one of those stately homes with a turret attached or visa versa. Indeed a hotel was built around the site. The turret was only accessible by a terrible outside climb that noone in their right mind would attempt -or- by this old and very unreliable elevator. The whispers were that the elevator was haunted. This whisper started around the time the elevator took to stopping half-way up and lurching menacingly. It was serviced meticulously and always passed with flying colours, only to act up again once re-certified safe. I was the only one of our party that knew the stories about this aspect and had left it out when persuading everyone to take the trip up to the top.
We had, possibly the worst elevator ride in the history of same, with stops and starts, and creaks and groans until we were all convinced we were going to die. I was so scared that I starting singing to dispel my terror. Everyone else was so scared they did not complain. Once we finally got to the top of the turret, at least 12 minutes since departing the bottom, everyone spilled out whereupon the silly lift disappeared. It went down, stranding us. My dad who was a terrible shade of green announced he would climb down, thank you very much. I looked over the top of the precipace wall- down down down and showed Dad. "Perhaps not" he said.
For some odd reason, as everyone was trying to shake the elevator heebee geebies I told them the stories about it supposedly being haunted. This was, in retrospect, a very bad move. We all now looked down at the suicidal climb and went silent. Just then, a click and a slam announced the return of the elevator. We all looked at one another and got in. This time, one of us held the door open and we tried to distribute the weight evenly, for a better chance at a smooth ride. Once in, the metal trellis was pulled across and down we went. Everyone held their breath expecting the treatment we had on the way up. Nothing at all happened. It was a perfectly normal return to the ground.
One by one we exited, and the guide at the bottom took one look at our befuddled state and said: "Glamis acting up?"
"You call the elevator Glamis?" I asked.
"No, actually we call it the Monster of Glamis but Glamis for short." He was smiling. "She doesn't like me, our Glamis doesnt, so I don't push my luck. I never use it anymore, well, after last time."
We did not ask. Probably because we knew.
All the way to work this morning I was fretting about this experience. I had resolved in my mind never to investigate aging turrets again if the guide did not actually accompany me. I was thinking how I should never have taken Dad there. How ridiculous the whole thing sounded but how terrifying it was in the moment. After my second client, I had a moment where I froze in my tracks and realised that I had never been in a haunted elevator and I certainly had never been on a castle/stately homes/ tourist trip with my father. Good God, I realised, that was a dream.
Is it any wonder that I wear a nametag? I might forget who I am at this rate.
It has been a long while since I had a dream indistinguishable from reality. Whose reality, you ask? The reality of haunted turrets and wayward elevators of course!
This is life. Or something like it.
