An elderly couple recently found themselves in an incredibly Sisyphean situation when they attempted to walk the wrong way up a moving walkway, resulting in them just walking in place for a good 30 seconds as people coming the other way inched closer and closer.

In the video, taken at a Westfield shopping mall, the couple can be seen calmly trying, and failing, to walk up the travelator, seemingly not realizing that physics mean they’ll never reach their destination. Slowly, patrons coming from the other direction reach the couple on the walkway, with several of them staring at the pair in confusion. Finally, one person informs them that their efforts are futile. At that point, the couple is essentially swept up in the larger group, and they allow themselves to be carried back to the start of the walkway.

It’s honestly a fairly depressing video: It’s hard not to imagine how bad you’d feel if this were your parents or grandparents, who were seemingly so confused that they found themselves stuck on a moving walkway. For how long would they have persisted if that man hadn’t told them to give up?

Commenters on Reddit were mostly confused, with one person asking what everyone was thinking: “What are they doing that for????” To this, their fellow Redditors had a few suggestions, including, “It’s performance art: an existential metaphor,” to which someone added, “One must imagine Sisyphus a boomer.”

Someone else suggested that there was a semi-reasonable explanation for this: They’re using the walkway as a treadmill with a railing the man can hold onto without falling over. Considering the popularity of mall walking, this makes a fair amount of sense — until you consider the fact that they’re blocking the walkway for everyone else. This explanation makes the video seem less depressing and more annoying — nobody is entitled to blocking walkways so they can get their steps in — and Redditors responded accordingly, decrying the “entitled boomers” and commenting that they should push their pride aside and just buy walkers.

One commenter had an even simpler explanation: “They’re so enamored with reverse mortgages that they’re trying to do everything in reverse now.” They’re probably bummed they can’t age in reverse, however.