Everyone Is Climbing, No One Is Arriving

The escalator moves whether you step on it or not.

At the mall it hums softly beneath rows of fluorescent lights. People stand in quiet lines, carried upward in neat intervals. Some scroll through their phones. Some stare at the metal grooves beneath their shoes. Nobody questions where the escalator leads. Everyone assumes there is a floor waiting.

Life used to feel like that.

You step on, you rise, you arrive.

At least that’s the promise we grew up hearing.

Study hard. Work hard. One day you will reach the level you belong on.

For a long time, the idea seemed simple enough. The escalator of life would carry everyone upward at their own pace. You might stand a little to the left while someone else walks quickly past you on the right, but eventually everyone would reach a landing.

A place where things made sense. A place where things settled. But something strange has happened in recent years.

The escalator didn’t just grow longer. It grew louder. Not with sound, but with images.

*****

A phone screen lights up and suddenly the escalator is crowded with other lives. Someone your age has bought their first house.

Someone else is celebrating a promotion with a photo taken on a rooftop bar. There are city lights behind them, soft and golden, like a movie set.

Another person announces a startup launch, or a new relationship, or a perfectly organized morning routine involving sunrise yoga and a cup of coffee placed just right beside a notebook.

The escalator keeps moving.

But now everyone can see everyone else’s steps.

You glance at your own feet. Ordinary shoes. Ordinary pace.

Meanwhile the people on your screen appear to be running.

*****

Social comparison used to be smaller.

You compared yourself to classmates, coworkers, maybe neighbors down the street. The circle was limited by geography and coincidence.

Now the circle has expanded into something enormous.

Thousands of lives glide past your eyes each day.

Carefully selected moments. Carefully edited triumphs.

The escalator has turned into a kind of public performance. Everyone is expected to look like they are ascending gracefully.

No one posts a picture of themselves standing still.

*****

The system thrives on this quiet pressure. Because once comparison enters the picture, the escalator speeds up.

You begin to measure your progress differently.

A new job doesn’t just mean stability anymore. It must also look impressive enough to share. A vacation must be photographed from the right angle. Even a simple meal becomes content if the lighting is good.

Life transforms into something slightly theatrical.

You are not just living.

You are curating.

*****

Sometimes the performance feels exhausting.

Late at night the escalator appears again, not in a shopping mall but inside the mind. Thoughts move upward in the dark.

Where should I be by now?

Did I miss a step?

Why does everyone else seem further ahead?

These questions arrive quietly but linger longer than expected.

The strange thing is that most people riding the escalator feel the same uncertainty. Yet the system rarely allows anyone to admit it.

Instead we continue presenting the polished version of our climb.

A smiling photograph.

A celebratory caption.

Another sign that everything is moving upward.

*****

Occasionally, though, the illusion flickers.

It might happen while sitting on a train surrounded by strangers all staring at glowing screens. It might happen during a conversation when someone finally admits they feel behind.

Or it might happen during a quiet moment alone, when you realize that the escalator beneath your feet has been running for years.

And still there is no visible floor.

The steps continue rising. The crowd continues comparing. The climb continues.

But the arrival never seems to happen.

*****

That is the peculiar design of this system.

The escalator was never meant to reach a landing.

If it did, the comparisons would stop. The endless measurements of success would lose their urgency. People might step off, sit down somewhere quiet, and realize they had been chasing a moving horizon.

So the escalator keeps going.

New milestones appear just ahead.

A bigger salary.

A better apartment.

A more impressive life to display on a glowing screen.

Each step promises that the next one will finally feel like enough.

*****

Meanwhile the people riding the escalator continue glancing sideways at one another.

We smile politely.

We congratulate each other.

We keep climbing.

But beneath the movement there is a quiet suspicion forming, shared by more people than we might think.

What if the escalator isn’t broken at all?

What if it is working exactly as designed?

A system powered by comparison cannot allow anyone to arrive. Arrival would mean satisfaction, and satisfaction slows the climb.

So the escalator hums forward, carrying us past one another in neat rows of ambition and doubt.

Phones glow.

Images scroll.

Steps rise endlessly beneath our feet.

And somewhere above us, always just out of sight, waits the floor we keep believing must be there.

*******

I wrote this piece in response to the “A System That Isn’t Working” challenge. I know the results have already been announced and I can no longer submit it to the competition. Still, the prompt stayed with me long enough that I felt compelled to write it anyway.

Sometimes a good question lingers like an echo in an empty hallway. This was one of those questions. So even if it arrives late to the challenge, I hope the piece still finds readers who recognize the system it tries to describe.

You can also explore my poetry here: