Broken Elevator

Grady wondered if he could just stay right where he was: live the remainder of his life splayed out halfway down the last flight of stairs, clutching his seat cushion in one hand, with his chair toppled at the bottom, and his things strewn between them. At first he wanted to get away. Go somewhere. Slide back down these steps, snoop around until he found someplace easy, then push his way in and settle down. People did it all the time, they started over, they moved on, they got born again. But, as his mind visualized his escapes, he realized that he could never imagine a place without him in it, where those two little legs, that ever felt like strangers, weren’t dangling from him. So he laid there. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered. Two flights down, the door yawned and closed with a thump. He knew it was Laura by her footsteps, the same ones that always walked by his door to the flat at the end of the hall. There was no time to hide, and he knew he couldn’t pretend to be ok. She came around the corner, surprised then concerned. Her handbag slid smoothly off her shoulder. 'Are you ok?' She asked.
'The elevator was broken,' he managed to say.