Marsh Grey (marshgrey) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-01-24 23:32:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | marsh grey, tal rainey |
Who: Marsh & Tal
What: Elevator trouble
When: Mid-day, January 18th
Where: Doctors office building, Las Vegas
Ratings: Mild-some mention of trauma
Standing outside a pair of elevator doors, Marsh pressed the ‘going up’ button with a sigh. Today was his first therapy appointment and he was nervous. What if the mere act of being in therapy was enough to trigger his memories of Lawrence Beals? It couldn’t be a good sign if he had a fit at the preliminary appointment, could it? A shiver ran down his spine at how his lack of accountability had made him put himself in a position where he could have easily died. This had to be done.
It was then a familiar face came into his eyeline. Tal worked at the shop where Marsh regularly had his truck serviced. Marsh offered the other man a polite smile. “Hey Tal, how’s it going?” He asked, unsure of whether or not it was polite to ask him why he was here where different types of doctors had offices.
Dressed in a clean pair of dark trousers and a black polo shirt, Tal was in LV for that routine yearly physicals. He didn’t care for it, but it was necessary. He walked up to the elevator doors and saw Marsh. “Hi Marsh!” Tal smiled back. “Good. How are you?”
A white lie only seemed fair, considering Tal didn’t ask him for his life story. “I’m alright.” The doors of the elevator dinged and then opened. A few people came tumbling out and Marsh quietly waited before walking inside and putting a hand across the door so it didn’t close on Tal when he walked in.
“What floor?” There were only four of them and some part of Marsh hoped it wasn’t the same. He didn’t need to explain to anyone why he was going to see a therapist or why it was such a big deal for him.
“Good, good,” Tal nodded. It was easy to put on a smile around people. Stepping back, he let the elevator occupants exit. “Thank you,” the muscular man nodded at Marsh and stepped in the elevator. Yes, it was a short building compared to the casinos. And it was a major deciding factor in choosing the doctor he did.
“Third,” he spoke and took a stance close to the doors.
He offered a polite smile to Tal as he pressed the button for the third floor. Damn, seemed like they were going to the same floor. He quickly pressed the fourth and stood back as the doors of the elevator closed. “Nice weather we’re having.” He said, only to quell the silence of the elevator ride. It wouldn’t take long but it felt right not to leave it in silence.
Suddenly the cart stopped, caught between the third and second floor. He jumped at first, startled by the sensation and then sighed. Quickly he pressed the emergency alarm to alert the owners of the building about the problem.
“It is. Not too hot, not too cold.” Yes, a bit of small talk seemed good. He hadn’t seen Marsh in a while. That seemed to indicate there wasn’t any problems with his truck. Very good. This elevator would be short, the doors would open and he would be able to step out of the steel box.
Then the tall and muscular man flinched, perspiration slowly beginning to show on his brow. This was a nightmare come true for him. A tight space with no way to get out. Stuck. Tal’s heart rate began to increase as he watch Marsh hit the emergency alarm. To try to calm himself down, the mechanic began to shortly pace - his shoulders beginning to shake. He didn’t like this, didn’t trust this. His fear of confined spaces was briskly taking hold.
“I need to get out,” Tal breathed sharply.
Marsh hadn’t had much regard for the other man until he began to pace. The behavior was one he was familiar with. One of his former clients worked on the tenth floor of a building and ended up losing her job because of her fear of heights. This has to be a phobia, Marsh didn’t even need to read his mind to see that.
“Ok Tal, they should be on their way. I can try to call someone but we might be stuck here for a minute.” He sighed and grabbed his cell phone from his pocket. No signal. “What I’m gonna need for you to do Tal, is breath. Can you do that for me?”
Tal’s mind was still in phobia, forgetting that he could rip the elevator doors open with his mind. But just as he was at fifteen through seventeen locked in his family’s basement, he felt powerless. Clasping his hands, the mechanic wrung them and his fingers. The trembling had flowed in his arms and down to his legs.
Blinking at Marsh saying his name, Tal looked over at him and listened. “There’s no way out,” he spoke and then nodded before trying to take a deep breath. The air was inhaled slowly, but exhaled hastily. Tal stopped in front of the doors and slammed his right hand, palm flat against the doors as the shaking increased.
This was bad and suddenly Marsh felt like all of his years of training was going out the door but he’d try regardless. “I pressed the alarm, someone’s gonna come just try to remain calm.” He took a deep breath and clasped his hands together. “Do you have your phone on you? Maybe we can get a signal.” He was trying to problem solve. Under any other circumstance he might not try to feed into it but they were stuck and they would need help getting out.
At the very least they weren’t so heavy together that they would weigh on the cables.
Tal swallowed a breath, his heart rate bringing a wave of nausea over him. “When, when are they going to come?” He whispered as he let his hand fall from the door. Listening, he pulled his phone from his pocket and brought up to look at - Roman’s smiling face with his lovely brown hair as the background. His hand was shaking so bad that he couldn’t tap the screen with any accuracy.
Droplets of sweat beaded on his forehead and some ran down his temples.
Marsh couldn’t stand to see him struggle so he gently took the cellphone out of Tal’s hand and looked at the screen. Roman. He remembered that face well, remembered hearing him thinking about hurting someone. He looked at Tal, hoping that whatever had been between them had changed Roman for the better. Opening up the emergency phone call on Tal’s cell he saw that there was a single bar of reception.
He dialed 911.
When the operator answered he spoke quickly. “Yes my name is Marshall Grey, I’m stuck in an elevator at…” the phone beeped with a lost signal before he could say where they were. His head hung as handed the phone back to Tal. “Goddamnit.” He was going to miss his appointment and it had taken long enough to have this one scheduled to begin with.
Tal wanted anyone’s help. He hadn’t let himself go back to the exact memories of who had kept him trapped, who was afraid of him, who left him there when I only wanted to be loved. Roman was out there. He cared about him. But he didn’t know where he was.
Then his whole body flinched as Marsh spoke, the phone lost signal, and the other man cursing. Tal took the phone back and stuffed it back in his pocket. A second later, the mechanic hit one of the elevators with a closed fist making a dull sound as the metal reverberated.
“Are we running out of air?” Tal asked as he was beginning to feel light-headed. He hadn’t had an episode like this in over eight months.
His head shook. “No, Tal. There are pipes that travel with the lift car. As long as the building is pumping out air, we’ll be getting what we need.” He replied, trying to challenge that negative thoughts train. It was something he’d always been good at with his patients and as long as he had reasonable explanations to negate those feelings then he might be able to help.
“Tal, you’re suffering from panic, and that’s why it seems like it’s hard to breath.” He looked at where Tal had hit the buttons and saw that the small door that had an emergency phone line.
Tal’s hand ached as he stared at the dark sliver between the elevator doors. He wanted to get out so bad. The panic was losing and then he blinked as he listened to Marsh’s explanation. But he was still trapped here in this tiny space. The mechanic could feel his heart beating as if it was trying to escape his rib cage.
The need to get out of the situation was accompanying his panic. “Please, open the doors.” Tal rasped on the verge of tears.
Marsh sighed, feeling that empathy for Tal like he had with so many of his patients. He felt helpless, a feeling that no doubt had been bubbling up for a while. Grabbing the phone behind the metal door, Marsh brought it to his ear and waited for the ringing to stop.
“Hello? Yes, me and my friend are stuck in your elevator between the second and the third floor.” He said into the receiver, waiting to hear instructions.
Ok, we’ll have our technicians out to fix the problem shortly. Please stay on the line. Hold music began on the line. Marsh looked over at Tal.
“Tal, can you do something for me? It’s real easy I promise.”
To comfort himself just a little, Tal crossed his arms and curled them around himself, almost withdrawing into his mind as he continued to feel the overwhelming symptoms of his panic. “Yes,” he breathed. Please just open the doors. Please.
This was good, he was willing to try. “I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to focus on your breathing for a moment.” Some guided meditation was useful for his patients with phobias, especially space related ones. After Tal took a couple of deep breaths Marsh continued.
“Ok now, I want you to imagine that you’re on a beach. Maybe you have someone special with you. No one else is around, just miles and miles of open space everywhere you look.” He hoped this might help calm Tal while they waited for the elevator maintenance to fix the problem.
“Okay,” Tal nodded as he closed his eyes. And he breathed in deeply twice before going for a third.
The tall muscular man did as Marsh asked, imagining a beach. He used his memories of the recent trip to Hawaii that he took with Roman. It was so wonderful - so much vegetation, sand, blue rippling water and waves, and the sky. The sky was so blue! Tal sniffed, the tears falling down his cheeks as he felt calmer.
His whole demeanor changed and Marsh took note of that. The hold music was still going so he figured he needed to move forward with the guided meditation. “The sun is warm, you chear the waves crashing against the shore. Your feet and your fingers are dug into the sand.”
Squeezing his eyes shut as he kept them closed, Tal nodded and continued to breathe deeply. He kept himself on the beach, following Marsh’s guidance, and imagined Roman sitting in a folding chair underneath a huge umbrella nearby. The tension in his chest had eased and he had stopped perspiring.
Someone had answered the phone again. A mechanic is working on your problem right now. “Good. Okay, Thank you.” He replied and hung up the phone.
“Alright Tal, now open your eyes.” He waited for the other man to comply and breathed with him one more time. “Elevator maintenance is working on it right now. Are you feeling alright?” He needed to find out if Tal would be able to maintain calm while they waited.
Tal slowly opened his eyes, breathing alongside Marsh. He kept his arms around himself and did not step away from the doors. “Yes. Is it okay if I stay right here, by the doors?” He asked softly.
Marsh nodded and attempted to close the metal door encasing the emergency phone though it didn’t seem like it wanted to stay closed anymore. “Sure Tal, maybe once it starts moving again you might want to move away but it’ll be fine for now.” He offered.
He was happy to see that Tal was feeling better and a little bit of hope came back to him. Like maybe if he still remembered how to do stuff like this then he might be able to manage his own problems in the future. He chuckled.
“You know, I sort of thought about ways I could get out of coming here today. Maybe my car wouldn’t start, or something more important would come up, but I never expected this.” It was an attempt to make their interaction more light-hearted.
Tal nodded, keeping to his deep breathing as he stared at the elevator doors. A small part of his mind was beginning to wonder what would have happened if Marsh hadn’t been in the elevator with him.
“That bad of an appointment?” Tal asked as a smile tried to tug at his lips.
He scoffed and ran his fingers through his hair, it was getting too long. “Well, the first of many and something I should have done a long time ago.” He shook his head and tried to smile. “I spent years counseling others that I didn’t realize I might need it too.” There was no need to hide why he was here now. After all, they were stuck in this elevator together for the time being.
“But I think I’ll still be able to make my appointment so I guess a broken elevator can’t even stop this from happening.” He joked.
“I...can understand that,” Tal confessed. But he had never seen a counselor, psychiatrist for his claustrophobia. The mechanic hadn’t told anyone the whole story and not his real name. He had coped by pushing that life away and handling his phobia as it came along. “I haven’t gone to anyone.” And he cut himself off there.
“Maybe it will be a breeze after something like this.” Tal spoke again and gave himself a gentle squeeze.
Marsh’s eyes softened and sighed. “Well maybe it’s well past time you saw someone about it. I promise it can do you some good.” He didn’t want to push it on Tal but he would always be an advocate for therapy, especially with a phobia like Tals.
He heard a sound, the power seemed to buzz on and he smiled. “Looks like we might be out of here sooner than we thought.”
Tal breathed in deeply, sounding a bit sharp as he inhaled through his nose. He didn’t want to go to another doctor. Being outside, seeing the sky would be enough. It always worked before.
The mechanic blinked as he heard the same sound. “I hope so.”
“Listen, if you need to talk man, just give me a call ok? James has got my number.” And it wasn’t like they didn’t see each other in their small town.
Suddenly the lift car buzzed to life and began to move up to the third floor. “Thank Jesus.” He said with a sigh of relief. While this didn’t affect him was much as it had Tal, his empathy did make him feel a bit stressed for his friend.
Turning to look at Marsh, Tal smiled a little. “I can do that.” Yeah, small town. But sometimes life got in the way.
The muscular man flinched again and took a step back out of reflex. It wouldn’t be too long until the doors would open. There was the hope Tal wanted, needed.
Marsh offered a smiled to him and placed a hand on his shoulder as the doors finally opened. “See you around Tal.” He said as he gave Tal the leeway to exit the elevator first, since he seemed to be the one who needed this the most.
“See you too, Marsh. Thank you for helping me,” Tal replied and nodded to the other man. “Good luck with your appointment,” he added and cautiously exited the elevator.