Dear Residents,
While this elevator was being serviced yesterday, the emergency phone was inadvertently disabled.
We are taping this note to the elevator to let you know that should you become trapped, you will not be able to call for help.
We are working on getting this fixed. Thank you.
—CoolWater Apartment Building Manager
Dear Residents,
Unfortunately, someone removed the previous warning note taped here.
One of our residents, Janice in #613, became trapped in this elevator last night and unknowingly tried to use the emergency phone.
Another resident waiting for the elevator overheard Janice screaming, “Help! I’m trapped in this stupid elevator! Why won’t you answer the phone? Oh god, my ice cream cake is melting!”
Please do not scream into the broken emergency phone. Quiet hours in our building are from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
If you hear screams coming from the elevator shaft, report it during business hours. Please do not remove this sign. Thank you.
—CoolWater Manager
Dear Residents,
The emergency phone has been reconnected. However, the technician hooked the line to the wrong socket, and the phone now seems to call a different emergency phone in a different elevator.
If you become trapped, you will not be able to call a rescuer. However, you may be able to talk to someone else who is riding a different elevator. Whether this appeals to you or not is a personal choice.
Thank you.
Dear Residents,
We have an update. The technician replaced the emergency phone line. However, the line is bad. The phone now calls a man who whispers in Japanese in a very fast and confusing way. He sounds angry.
We want to know who this man is, and we are investigating. Thank you.
Dear Residents,
We believe the whispering man is a librarian trying to collect late fees from delinquent book borrowers in the central Osaka Prefecture on the island of Honshu.
One of our residents who speaks Japanese figured this out when she was briefly trapped in the elevator for five hours yesterday.
We have disconnected the emergency phone until the elevator company fixes it.
Thank you.
Dear Residents,
A technician reconnected the phone yesterday. An hour later, one of our residents, David in #715, became trapped in the elevator.
David tried to use the emergency phone to call a rescuer, but due to some wiring issues, the person who answered the phone was a younger version of David himself, riding the same elevator in the past. Present David, who teaches philosophy at the nearby college, warned his younger self about the many problems currently plaguing academia: poor funding, administrative bloat, etc. Younger David became disturbed and vowed to go into real estate instead of philosophy, thereby actualizing a contradiction.
We are actively working on resolving this temporal paradox. Thank you.
Dear Residents,
We are terribly sorry. In the past twenty-four hours, many more residents have been trapped in this elevator, and everyone who uses the emergency phone ends up talking to younger versions of themselves.
Regina in #330 told her past self that George in #331 has been stealing her Amazon packages since 2021. Past Regina retaliated against past George by pointing her speakers directly at their shared wall and blasting early Megadeth albums 24-7, thereby leading George, who’s more of a jazz guy, to retaliate by blasting Charles Mingus. This led them to both move out two years ago.
Then, Samantha in #117 warned her 2020 self to not let her cheating asshole of a boyfriend, Derrick, move into her apartment. This meant she no longer had Derrick to help pay the rent with the lottery winnings he accrued from tipping off his past self about the Powerball numbers. This led 2020 Samantha to fall behind on rent during COVID, and we were forced to use the elevator phone to call ourselves in 2019 and warn ourselves not to rent to her.
All of this raises the painful question of how Regina, Samantha, and Derick ended up in our elevator yesterday.
Please do not use the emergency phone right now, as creating metaphysical paradoxes is a lease violation.
We will have this fixed by Monday. Thank you.
Dear Residents,
We have good news and bad news.
The technician worked on the phone over the weekend, and sadly, he became trapped in the elevator. Fortunately, he was able to call his past self, who had reinforced the phone wiring six years ago. Not only is the emergency phone fixed, it was never broken. All time loops are now closed. Should you become trapped, rescuers are standing by.
Unfortunately, the elevator is currently out of service.
Please take the stairs.
Thank you.
—CoolWater Manager