How long will it take security to get here? I'm at the elevator bank in a hotel lobby standing on a man with a gun. He's moving around under me as if he's jerking around in a bad dream and I'm trying to keep my balance, leaning against an elevator door for support. I can't tell where the gun is because the man is wrapped head-to-toe in his overcoat, maybe as the result of an earlier tussle. I was trying to be discrete at first, just as the hotel manager requested so as not to alarm the other guests, but this is getting ridiculous. He assured me he'd go and alert security and return with help right away but that was god only knows how long ago. In the meantime, another guest knelt down to get a closer look and got shot in the eye for his trouble. What if the elevator door I'm leaning against starts to open? To hell with their precious protocol, their smooth running operational system, their four-and-a-half star rating. Everyone in the lobby is now dashing around in a total panic, eyes bugged out, arms pinwheeling like in the cartoons. They're bumping into each other, not knowing where to go, what to do, and still no hotel security. They're all echoing back at me what I'm shouting as if I were alone in a canyon. "Man with a gun! Man with a gun!"
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