Goodreads asked Raymond St. Elmo:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Raymond St. Elmo Stuck in an elevator for 3 hours.

It was the freight elevator for Security Floor 20. I'm supposed to use the regular 'blue' elevator but I was in a hurry.

It stalled. So I sat for five hours chatting with patients from 'Security Floor 20'. They twisted about in their restraints, laughing at life's petty inconveniences.

I'm an introvert; don't usually notice others. But that day I saw People. I saw faces flicker with emotions like the shadows of fire. I beheld the human desire to live and love, to create and destroy and rend, mangle and chew. I watched eyes express souls. I watched patients help each other out of their restraints.

Some firemen rappelled down the shaft, opened the ceiling-panel, looked in and then rappelled right back up. Most of them made it to safety. Most of them.

I put it in all in my book.

The docs here on blue ward #5 say it's great therapy.

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