Escalator Down for Repair

Will repairs and corrections restore a broken life?

He walked up the metal steps past the sign every single day. Escalator Down for Repair. It had been permanently affixed to the shiny metal that lined the machine. Many days, the escalator worked and worked fine. Carrying kids and moms, workers, homeless people seeking warmth, and the aimless souls who populated the city’s “great” library. Some just passed through on to another destination, like him. Others stayed in to stay warm or watch a kids show or actually find and possibly check-out a book.

The building had been open for just over 10 years, and for at least the last four, the escalator had been down for repair all or part of most weeks. Sometimes, workers would appear in blue jumpsuits and with large, grease-stained hands, they’d make the machine move. Or just stand there and look at it.

He wondered if this team of guys in blue work clothes got dispatched all over the city to find the dysfunctional machines and give some appearance that they were being fixed. He wondered if the escalator had been essentially broken when it was installed. Or if it might have been installed improperly or if it was simply the consequence of awarding government contracts to the lowest bidder. And even still, wondered why it couldn’t be more permanently fixed. And why no one really complained.

Was it left undone so that the blue-clothed men could have a project every couple of weeks? Would it be cheaper to simply rip out…