Plot

The story is set some time in the past, or maybe some time in the future. Given a time-frame, we would say somewhere between the American moonwalk, and Coca- Cola's serious ambition to turn the moon into an advertising logo. Our central character, the young lift operator, is formed by experience into cynicism, detachment, and apathy. The story builds to its crescendo: of public outrage and state crackdown; the banality of commercial interest and the monumental rape of nature. Set in a large newspaper office, the Lift is a place of relative safety. But floor by floor, with each passenger in his or her tableau, the atmosphere of mayhem seeps in. Finally our young character leaves the situation, far-gone in hopelessness and disinterest.—Billy MacKinnon

Set in a large newspaper office, the story entails a number of individuals going to and fro in a moment of violent unrest.

The young hero (or anti hero) is a lift operator. The lift itself is a place of relative safety. But floor by floor, with each passenger and his or her own tableaux and concerns, the atmosphere of mayhem slowly seeps in.

The lift/elevator becomes a theatre of love, death, trouble and ambition.

Opening on two journalists: one drinks and is full of questions, the other is more silent.

A newspaper proprietor, arrogant and opinionated, surrounded by a group of fawning young sycophants. Despite his apparent authority he will end under arrest by what we may assume is a state of police emergency.

A young woman grieves the damage to the heel of her stiletto shoe, clearly the result and emotional trauma of the outside riots.

The sudden appearance of a character armed and dressed in riot gear suggests the immanent presence of state authority.

Regardless of the outside chaos the French fashion correspondent single-mindedly continues with her sartorial advice into a dictaphone. When her lover enters, feeling safe in a power cut, they carry on romantically.

Despite the liftboy's seeming complacency each of the individual characters pursue their own passionate agendas.

Next the lift boy is left alone with a corpse by journalist colleagues who are sensitive and upset but still fail to consider that they have left a dead body in the immediate company of a child.

Here, when we hear the lift bell ring we wonder if he will respond, move the lever drive down. He does. During the drive another power cut comes. We are left in a potential nightmare; a young boy in the dark of a closed space with a cadaver at his feet. The boy stays untouched, only coldly curious. He lights a match to scrutinize the face.

A much older man makes an appearance to declare a strike in the basement of the print workers, thereby revisiting memories of his socialist youth.

Towards the end, a common police man addresses the boy like an absurd father, and wants him to stand up like a man. Just as the old striker seems to have nostalgia for a socialist past, so the police officer seems to reflect a sentiment for the foregone spirit of European fascism.

Finally the boy leaves his closed environment, which works nearly as an ivory tower.

Our anti-hero steps through the outside wreckage into an unknown night and an unknown destiny. He somehow doesn't seem to care about the moon, or the advertisement on it, the upheavals, the futile protests, the global arrogance. He even claims he has seen it before.

The young lift boy walks away from the situation, far-gone in hopelessness and disinterest.

The story is set some time in the past, or maybe some time in the future. Were it given a specific time-frame, we would say somewhere between the building of the Berlin wall, the American moonwalk, and the Coca-Cola company's serious ambition to turn the moon into a global advertising logo. The time frame could be inferred by the costumes, or hair side- partings, as nearly nineteen sixties or fifties, though the weird technical props and the fact that fashion repeats itself may just as well lead us to 2060, or sometime like that.

The place is unknown. Like Gotham city we can't quite recognize the location. When one of the journalists breathlessly tells us It's started it could be Mauerbau or Prague spring or possibly something else, or some other time.