Sample Diploma work

The Haunted Lift

 


On the ground floor

of this ultramodern

tower block

 

in the dead

middle

of the night

 

the lift doors

open, with a

clang.

 

Nobody enters,

and nobody

comes out.

 

In the dead

middle

of the night

 

the lift doors

close with a clang,

and the lift begins

 

to move

slowly

up…

 

with nobody in it,

nobody but

the ghost of a girl

 

who lived here once

on the thirteenth floor of

this ultramodern tower block.

 

One day, she went to play

in an old part of town,

and never came back.

 





She said she was just

going to the corner shop,

but she never came home.

 

Now her ghost

keeps pressing

in the dead

middle of the night

the button

for the thirteenth floor.

 

But when the door

opens with a clang

she cannot step out.

She gazes longingly

at the familiar landing,

but only for a moment…

 

then the lift doors

clang in her face

and her tears

 

silently flow

as the lift

in the dead

 

middle

of the night

so soft and slow

 

carries her down again

down below

far, far below

 

the ground

floor, where nobody

waits for the haunted lift

 



 



 

Sometimes

on the thirteenth floor

her mother and father



with her photo

beside their bed

wake up

 

in the dead

middle of the night, and hear

the mysterious clanging

 

of closing lift doors,

and wonder

who it could be

in the dead

middle

of the night

 

using the lift

at such

an unearthly hour.

 

In this ultramodern

tower block

there is no thirteenth floor.