Three More for a Zoo

Three More for a Zoo
2009

When the elevator reached the ground floor, three people walked off and a man and a woman hopped in. The man asked, with a languid but polite deference, which floor the lady was going to. The lady turned to look at him and took in his simple countenance, white hair, droopy chin and fleshy nose, before responding that she would be going to the seventh floor. The man stumbled in his speech as he replied, and pressed only the one button. He quickly realised that he wasn’t in fact going to the seventh floor, so turning to the lady with a smile that she missed, he pressed, or at least thought he pressed, the twelfth floor. A bell shot off like a bull on parade and the two inmates recoiled synchronically.
‘What have you done you old coot?’ the woman demanded.
‘Oh god, I’m sorry, I must have pressed the emergency button.’ The man looked over and smiled the same smile. ‘My dear I’m very sorry. I am going to see my daughter, you see – she’s having another child. It’s my fourth grandchild after James, Sally, Thom-’
‘I’m not interested, buddy. Now move over and let me try and use this damned intercom to tell them to restart this bloody thing.’ The woman grunted and clenched her jaw as she didn’t physically, but implicitly, bumped the older man out of the way.
The man was not startled. ‘I’m Tony; I think we may be in here for a while so I thought I would introduce myself.’ The woman, who had apparently not heard the man or was trying to act as though she was too busy with the intercom didn’t acknowledge him. After several rings a cool, blasé male voice answered their call, and the woman, who introduced herself as Cindy, told him that everything was OK and that she would appreciate it if they could get the damned thing working – quickly - because it was an accident that the damned elevator had stopped in the first place. As this was happening, the older man searched through his jacket pockets and from the inside breast pocket took out an old key with a ribbon attached to it, wrapped the ribbon around his ear and placed the key itself on the ridge of his ear like a pen. He then searched the same breast pocket and removed a small canister. He took two of six white tablets before screwing the lid back on, and with his left hand placed the tablets in his mouth while his right hand bumped and searched his chest until the left was free to assist in placing the canister back into his jacket pocket. He threw back his head. The woman noticed this sudden movement, but quickly turned back to the intercom. The old man missed her curiosity, but reached for his ear and took the key from it before examining it. He peered at a note which the ribbon was looped through but couldn’t quite make out definitively what it said.
‘Excuse me, would you mind doing me a favour and having a look to see what this says?’ The old man walked over to the woman with the package in both his hands, as though he were carrying a bomb of sorts.
‘Too damned faded.’
‘Dear, I think I’m supposed to know what it says.’
‘Well, maybe it used to say something, but now it’s nothing.’ The woman, then feeling her answer was too civil, continued: ‘It’s just gibberish. May as well be bloody Ara-bic. Or hieroglyphics or somethin’’
‘Thank you either way. Once more I’m terribly sorry about this ordeal.’
The woman told him to stop apologising, that it was making her blue. She then sighed and analysed him again, this time with a different scrutiny and told him that they would be moving in a minute and for him to think about his damned granddaughter.

The title caught me, so I thought I'd give this a look. I'll start with nitpicks and some comments on word choice, and then a few more general opinions at the end.

When the elevator reached the ground floor, three people walked off and a man and a woman hopped in.

As an opening sentence, this reminds me of the beginnings of a joke. Considering the rest of the story, which is written in quite a light-hearted style as it is, I suppose this might have been intentional, but if it wasn't... Oh, and you refer to your female character as a woman here and then as a lady in the next few sentences, so I would consider changing this one to lady as well.

He quickly realised that he wasn’t in fact going to the seventh floor, so turning to the lady with a smile that she missed, he pressed, or at least thought he pressedcomma the twelfth floor.

I think you need another comma in there.

A bell shot off like a bull on parade and the two inmates’ recoiled synchronically.

No apostrophe after inmates, but I'm sure that's just a typo.

‘What have you done you old coot?’ the lady demanded.
‘My gosh, I must have pressed the emergency button.’ The man looked over and smiled the same smile. ‘My dear I am very sorry. I am going to see my daughter, you see – she’s having another child. It’s my fourth grandchild after James, Sally, Thom-’

I like the idea behind this dialogue, since my grandparents are always trying to mention their grandchildren in conversation, but you let yourself down with the actual speech itself. Men don't tend to say 'my gosh' very often, no matter how old they are, and the lady sounds rash straight off. She might say, "What have you done?", but somehow I don't think she'd insult him quite so quickly. The man also says "I am" a lot as opposed to "I'm", and really, he wouldn't in conversation.
You need some commas in here as it is. You might think that the character wouldn't pause for breath when talking, and perhaps they wouldn't, but when writing it down you need some commas to help the flow.

‘I’m not interestedcomma buddy. Now move over and let me try and use this damned intercom to tell them to restart this bloody thing.’ The woman grunted and clenched her jaw as she didn’t physically, but implicitly, bumped the older man out of the way.

How can you implicitly bump somebody out of the way? I would scratch that and just have her shove past him. I'll repeat what I said before though; I think she's too mean, too quick to insult the man. She's not a very believable character, though I think the man is.

because it was an accident that the damned elevator had stopped in the first place.

Surely it could never have stopped purposefully? This is pretty much irrelevant, I would scratch it.

The whole of the paragraph about the man with the ribbon key is very blocky and very much, "he did this, he did that, he raised his arm 45 degrees" and so on. You could probably split it up and make it less like a sequence of events and more like a flowing story. As it is, I got lost reading it, since it was almost like reading a recipe for movement rather than imagining movement itself.

I'll end up repeating myself if I quote too much, so you can count this as the general summary, I think.

Characters: The man has a thoroughly believable character, but you need to polish his dialogue a little and make him sound less like an automated drone. He also needs a bit of fleshing out.
The woman, I've already summarised. She's just walking arrogance, with seemingly no other character traits.

Plot: Is this to be continued or something, or was it just a spur of the moment piece? I like the idea, but it needs to be carried by the strength of its characters, so you need to work on them in order to give this a bit of substance.
I was completely lost at the end, but I got the feeling that this was intentional. You could slow the ending down a little though, just to make sure that the reader isn't thrown by the sudden diversion of focus, from the lift to the ribbon.

Writing: This is written with an odd flair, so as to surprise me every so often with a bit of vocabulary and then to dip back into the old "he did this" format. That could work well, but you don't maintain the quirkiness throughout.
The dialogue is the other issue I had, but I think I already mentioned that a few times. Make sure you're being realistic.

This has potential, so hopefully I've made a few suggestions that will help you out a little, if you want to refine it. That wasn't the best review I've ever given, but as I said, I got a little confused with the story. Apologies, and good luck.

He quickly realised that he wasn’t in fact going to the seventh floor, so turning to the lady with a smile that she missed, he pressed, or at least thought he pressed the twelfth floor.

First off, you spelled realize wrong.

"May as well be bloody Ara-bic. Or hieroglyphics or somethin’’

Arabic doesn't need a dash. Something, in the form of somethin should have an apostrophe... like this somethin'.

The woman told him to stop apologising, that it was making her blue. She then sighed and analysed him again

You spelled apologizing wrong, the write way is written in this sentence.

There, that's about all the punaction and spelling issues that I've found. I'm only good at finding mistakes in that area. Look for someone else to find the plot and stuff.

Thanks a lot and i have read it and i do think that the old fella could do with a makeover, so i'll get cracking on that and have the newly edited version up and running soon.

Yeah it is just a tiny scene that i had to write about for uni, we got given two characters and their descriptions, a place and an object - the key.

Uhm oh, and being Australian, and being an anglophile as we are as people, i tend to use the letter 'z' on very rare occasions. And if i ever useed them in 'realise' or 'apologise' i'd need to get a 'Silas' like barbed garter to wear around.