Kerplunk.

Saying something seemingly exaggerated and outlandish like "I almost died today" reeks of melodrama.  Such an opening sentence is akin to a teaser that you'd hear on the news...assuming some people still watch the news on TV...and if they don't I would welcome suggestions on a more relevant analogy.  "This breakfast food might be giving you cancer!  Find out what it is when we return!"

Luckily my penchant for digression saved any readers from such foolishness, but I do have some explaining to do.

There are eight elevators at the office.  Seven of them are clearly designed for transportation of people and mobile wheels (carts, wheelchairs, etc.).  The eighth is a freight elevator, with heavy burlap hanging from all the walls and a 12 foot ceiling.  I suppose this was designed for the bulkier items (desks, cows, etc.).  All of the elevators operate without discretion, and I was the lucky soul the freight elevator chose for my trip back up to my office.

So I pressed the button for my floor (13, for the superstitious), and up I went...until it stopped.  It didn't gently glide to a halt like I had grown to expect from an elevator.  It slammed on the brakes, as if some rogue elevator was going horizontally and burned through the intersection.  Seconds passed, and then it fell.  I wish there was a less traumatic word, but I don't know how else to describe the sensation of suddenly feeling the effects of gravity halfway up an enormous office building.

It only fell a few feet before stopping again, but that was plenty.  That was more than enough to make me wish I had brought my cell phone, and to wonder how quickly I could text something retrospectively morbid like "elevator's crashing, love you!" to the people I cared about.  Nothing happened for about 15 seconds (which felt more or less like a fortnight), except that the 13th floor button was no longer lit.  I pressed it again, timidly, afraid that the monumental shift in weight required to press a button would rock the compartment and send me down.  But, instead, the door opened, and I got out on what turned out to be the 12th floor.

I took the stairs the rest of the way.  Obviously.

I wish I could cull something inspirational from such an event.  Like a "live life like it's your last day" sort of adage, but nobody does that, do they?  If we all tried to maximized the life experience on a daily basis nobody would have jobs, or buy groceries, or pay bills.  We'd all be scaling tall mountains or fighting grizzlies with our bare hands.

But the day progressed, more or less, like any other.  I worked, drove home, took my daughter to karate, threw a load of laundry into the washer.  The only difference is that my mind occasionally drifted back to that moment in the shitty freight elevator when I felt my feet, albeit briefly, rise from the floor.

A few months ago, when I occasionally fancied myself as a serious writer, I was working on a story that concerned parallel universes, inspired somewhat by Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Theory.  I don't claim to have any vast knowledge of quantum physics, but I'm well aware of Hugh Everett because of his son, Mark Oliver, who is the lead singer and multi-instrumentalist for the Eels.  It's a bit embarrassing that alt-rock would inspire me to read up on a physicist, although I can't think of any other bands whose members have parents that are moderately famous in the world of science.  The elder Everett posited his theory at the quantum level to describe a function like light, which behaves occasionally as a particle, and occasionally as a wave.  Everett basically said well, whenever it functions as a wave, in some other universe it functions as a particle.  At a less microscopic level, the theory says that whatever action you take in this universe, your doppelganger takes the opposite in a parallel universe.  But, there is rarely a dichotomy.  Often there are dozens of possible actions, or more.  Add to that the fact that humans perform millions of actions a day and that there are billions of humans, and there must be a near-infinite, if not an infinite, number of parallel universes.

It's a theory that begs skepticism, obviously, as there's absolutely no concrete proof (which is why it's not the Many Worlds Law).  But it's a curious thought, to me.  Some other universe's Tim drove a BMW to work today, another might be under the weather and called in sick, still another is vacationing in Europe, and one is fluent in German and has a handlebar mustache.

And one probably plummeted to his death in an elevator.  RIP, Nega-Tim!