“Red Elevator”

Krapook Yanitta

Art of Creative Unity Award - Youth 2022 | Honorable Mention

RED ELEVATOR

Inspired by the 6th October, 1976 massacre in Bangkok, Thailand.

I still hear the cut-short screams coming from the barren, bloodied elevator in the university corridor followed by the rapid re of gunshots that echoed through the empty eld. Dark red were the hours we spent scrubbing the dried blood that embedded itself on to the elevator tiles. Dead was the campus, glittering were the pools of blood that shone under that sparkling afternoon sun, shining as if it had been just another normal day.

I held a red tank of paint and set it on the elevator oor. Its inhumane color—a bright carnelian red—was unlike the blood the day of the massacre. They killed those of us like prey, shooting anyone in sight as if we were wild animals and they were the hunters, only searching for the spray of blood, the sizzling of bodies—corpses.

They silenced the survivors, barring us behind the gates of the school as we scrubbed the mess they made, erasing their mistakes, eacing the slaughter of my peers, dehumanized and forgotten.

I walk down the same halls I once walked through two decades ago, this time, as a professor. My right hand feels empty, and my ngers try to grasp air, as if conjuring another intangible hand clasping mine. The painted walls are no longer stained with blood, but bright and colorful illustrations painted with young hands that shaped what was to come. I place my hand at onto the concrete walls, and behind the layers of rough acrylic paint, I feel the building’s history surging through my veins, heart pumping, pulse rising—and then—shrieks followed by gunshots.

“Ajarn1?”

I open my eyes. A girl stands in front of me, and I recognize her from my history seminar that morning with her hand in the air all class, as if reaching for the sun with her bare ngers. She carries a laptop in her two bony arms, wrapped around her chest. She stares at me with her deep, soulful eyes and a worried look. A part of her reminds me of a special friend, someone I had known since we uttered our rst words. I wonder if she ever thinks of me sometimes.

“Ajarn, are you all right?” She asks.

I nod and straighten my shirt collar as I turn to face her. Her eyes xate on me, unblinking, unmoving, two pupils boring into mine like two pitch black gun barrels. I swallow, “I’m ne, thank you.”

“You were leaning against the wall, Ajarn. Do you need me to escort you to the inrmary?” Her matter-of-fact tone is identical to her tone in class—asking questions, expecting expected answers.

1 A Thai word students use to refer to their university professors.

I shake my head and inch to the side. “I have to go,” I say, but as I rush to the other end of the corridor, I hear the same soft clacking footsteps behind me.

“I’m going this way, too, Ajarn,” she says, following me with her arms still wrapped around her chest, huddled under her shoulders.

I slow down, letting her catch up to me. We walk side by side as I look around at how much the building changed. The sun rays stream through the windows that bullets once pierced through. There are no more bulletin boards and hanging banners, but instead, there are screens, showcasing impressionist artwork created by students.

“I used to be a student here. A long time ago,” I say, though I did not mean to say it out loud, “This place has changed so much.” We keep walking forward, both the soles of our heels clicking on the stone tiles.

Before I realize where my legs took me, the girl already pressed the elevator button. She stands there, waiting, glancing at the red rectangular numbers descending down from twenty-three, tapping the sole of her foot repeatedly on the ground.

It is the red elevator.

“I heard rumors that there were ghosts here, in the red elevator,” she says, “But I’ve never seen any, and I’ve always taken this route because it’s not crowded.”

I stare at the oor and trace my shoes along the lines connecting the shiny, white tiles. This elevator was once crowded, I say to myself. And with each blink, blotches of dried blood appear on the oor, and fresh blood splattered all over, oozing out of the connecting cement lines. I suck in a deep, shaky breath.

The blood is gone.

“Ajarn?” She takes a step closer to me, long ngers eortlessly wrapped around my small bony wrist, “Do you want my inhaler?”

I shake my head. It takes me a few seconds to calm myself down and to stop seeing the nightmares, death and massacre splattering before my eyes. “I remember what happened in the red elevator,” I say, “I saw it with my own eyes.”

The elevator bell knells—but in my head, I hear gunshots.

I walk in, maintaining my straight posture. The girl hesitates, putting one foot forward and counting under her breath before fully stepping in.

“What happened here, Ajarn?”

“It wasn’t so long ago,” I say, watching the numbers descend from twenty, not stopping at any oors, “It was a normal Wednesday. The campus was bustling with students, some aware, some unaware and some lucky enough to be untouched by the recent coup. The day before, a group of students had put on a play, and just like its name, it was playful. A playful play, making fun of the very core of what makes us Thai. And the day after, the sixth of October, I remember it with my own eyes. We had not thought the campus would be tainted dark red that afternoon.”

The elevator ride lengthens as if time has stopped. I no longer see the girl standing in front of me, listening intently to what had been concealed from history books. What she has only heard of through whispers and warnings.

“The actors of that production were accused of insulting the royal family on the basis of the lese-majeste laws. They turned themselves in, and when one of them stood up with a white ag, he was

immediately shot and killed. We protested, stood with our arms linked around the campus, with our backs as shields to our freedom, our honor. We still had not seen blood with our own eyes, so we did not fear anything. We said it was not fair. We wanted to say what we wanted to. And we got to,” I say and pause, “That day, students were hanged in front of the campus. People beat them with a chair and the crowd grinned wide showing crooked rows of teeth. Soldiers broke into the gates, shot everyone in sight.”

“I had a friend here. A very special friend.” I sigh, closing my eyes.

I remember the promises we made back when being a teacher was just one of the thousands of dream jobs we had alongside pilot, doctor, cowboy and princess. I remember: once in our middle school art club, we came to this corridor to paint the walls with our own illustrations of rainbows and cotton candy trees. I remember her saying in high school that we would walk to class hand-in-hand as professors. I remember that Wednesday morning, when she said she’d meet me for dinner, when she was going to learn whether her teaching dreams had come true, when she still had a long road ahead...

I remember her holding the letter, nudging it into my hands. “Keep it,” she said, “I don’t want to know the results just yet.” I insisted, underestimating how much I meant to her but also melting with the honor of receiving her trust. “I want to open it with you. We started this journey together,” she told me before running o to class, white sneakers squeaking on the clean oor tiles.

I see her standing in front of me. I walk towards her as the metal elevator doors gradually open. Slow motion. Walking, walking, walking.

Ding.

The silver metal doors clang to the side. Students stand huddled in the corner, shivering, whimpering, praying to all the gods as if they existed. And in a split second.

Pung.

Explosion. Rapid gunre. Bullets piercing through skin, esh and metal. Blood splatters on the cotton candy tree painted on the wall. Her body slumps onto the ground, head hanging at an angle, blood oozing out of her chest, a deep cut seared in between her breasts. Her skin is not a dead color yet.

I hear myself screaming. I hear more gunshots. I hear my own footsteps scrambling for shelter. I see her lifeless face. Her lifeless eyes, staring at me. Glassy pupils.
That was the last time I saw her staring back at me.
“What happened to her, Ajarn?”

“The gods were not in our favor,” I say, “This elevator door opened, the royal soldiers shot everyone huddled in her for shelter, for asylum. I remember seeing her split-second smile before the bullets ew. I remember her last glance at me as she slumped onto the ground, drowning in her own pool of blood.”

I glance at the girl and take in the look in her eyes. It was a mixture of fear, anger and regret.

“I was assigned to be one of the students who scrubbed the elevator clean of blood,” I chuckle, “How ironic that was at the time, having me, an aspiring history teacher, erase the history buried in these walls. But the splotches stayed, as if my friend was hanging on for existence, as if she were holding onto me.”

“That’s why they painted the elevator red?” The girl asks.

I look at the side of the elevator where there is a mirror. My special friend stares back at me with her wide grin and crinkling corners of her eyes. She waves, still young with freckles on her face and straight, thick bangs.

“I can still see her through the other side of the mirror,” I say, waving back, “I think I’ll be using this elevator often after all.”

The elevator dings. The doors open. This time, there are no soldiers. There is no blood.

There is just the shiny, scrubbed clean oor tiles and the bustling crowds of students getting ready for lunch. There is just the green grass, uy cumulus clouds and blooming owers. There is just the hidden history of a day in the life of Bangkok, October 1976. There is just the lighthearted atmosphere of students, who hopefully never have to witness the horrors of the massacre ever again.

And there is just a tiny voice saying behind me, grasping me back to this reality, “Ajarn, they renovated the elevator and removed the mirror last week.”

But I’d like to believe that maybe—somewhere in the sky, the clouds, with the gods that couldn’t save us—my friend senses that I’m here. Maybe she does think about me sometimes.

Krapook Yanitta is a high school student from Bangkok, Thailand. She writes novels, short stories, songs and poetry when she isn't drowning in a sea of homework. When she isn't writing, she's writing songs, making her own jewelry or reading a riveting novel.