Hurrying For A Deadend

The hunched-up shoulders paused on the marble steps; they seemed to climb endlessly. The chandeliers and finished wood banisters gave the old place an elegance that Augusten thought had gone out of style with the acceptance of convenience as a replacement for taste. But the large, poorly-lit and cobwebbed lobby possessed a spirit of dissonance that tasted of lost souls. As Augusten lightly placed his soles on the slabs in front of him, he felt as if his whole life was before him.
Augusten would have barely glanced at the pile of rags on the third floor landing if it had not emitted a fragile whisper of a cough; the sort of whisper that could only catch Augusten by surprise in a seemingly abandoned stairwell. The man had a grizzled mane of unwashed and unkempt hair. His face, barely visible through the dirt and grime of ages spent in undesirable places, had most unremarkable features except for his eyes. These emeralds sat deep and far apart as they shined on the no-longer distinguishable articles of old brown cloth. Augusten moved his hand to his front right pocket, searching for his wallet.
“No thanks, friend,” the old man offered. “I’ve seen enough change for a lifetime after eons of scraping and shivering in the tunnels and basements of this earth. No change has ever helped me climb out. I’ve done what I could to help humanity but there’s no helping those who won’t be helped. And besides, you couldn’t possibly get me to move now…”
Augusten heard the old man trail off as he continued up the stairs. He took the old man’s words to heart as there was nothing to be done but continue. The pungent odors of mold and rot drifted to Augusten’s nose but he kept his eyes glued to the marble stairs. And of course, because Augusten was not paying attention, he collided directly with the young carpenter as he strode up to the fifth floor.
All Augusten had time to notice about the man was his incredibly striking eyes. They had the same intensity as the old man’s but these irises burned with a sapphire brightness. Augusten stared up into his eyes as the carpenter from the floor, which was in the midst of repairs.
“Oh yes, I’m fine”, the carpenter answered Augusten’s unasked question hastily. “Excuse me; I still have many floors to cover”.
Augusten, surprised by the urgency at repairing an empty building, was not even left time to respond. The carpenter ran off up the stairs, seeming to vanish as Augusten struggled onward.
As Augusten reached the twelfth floor, he wondered where the time had gone. He felt old and used up but as he looked over the railing, he realized there was nowhere left to climb. He had expected a door, or at the very least, a sign pointing him in the right direction but the old man and the carpenter had left him unprepared for this. Neither of them had warned Augusten that he was heading for a dead end. A crack in the old dry-wall allowed a single ray of sunlight to pass in front of Augusten as he sat on the marble stairs, making him think of all the small things he had never noticed.