2

En route again to the third floor. The callouses on either side of his directing finger had his focus. They stuck dry to the flesh of his finger. The upper rim of the left callous was peeling. It caused him significant discomfort but allowed him to do his job. It reflected his job. Tuesday to Sunday he toyed the swivel with no outside thought – only that which bounced the walls of his internal world.

All riders could see when his attention was apprehended. Those of all parties who noticed his presence that was. He could take and apply the destination of each group that his box hosted without foregoing his precious divided attention. This wasn’t something he congratulated himself for. Primarily because he had not noticed.

The people that traded in and out of his box were spread across all tastes. Those who showed themselves in their dress and those who fell into their fashion through convenience. Those motion sick and those whose stomachs fluttered when they moved. Those who wished to discover their companions and those for whom it was of no interest.

The liftman was afforded the opportunity to meet any of these individuals where they stood. But it was not a challenge he readily rose to. Not out of fear or contempt for challenge but primarily because he had not noticed.

3

Monday’s liftman fed with every opportunity. Social interaction fuelled his spirit, at the cost of his body. Fatigue was not uncomfortable or alien to Monday’s liftman, it was assumedly part of the life he was prone to live. His social tendencies were outside his control.

Monday’s liftman had an equally cylindrical cap, matching earth coloured uniform, that was home to an equally offensive protrusion in the rim of it. In constitution, these men were in separate worlds. Monday’s liftman took it upon himself to make conversation about the annoyance in his cap. A younger couple, climbing to the fifth floor, entertained the conversation he extended. He raised their moods. They tried on the cap and noted its poor fit. At once, being too large for one and too small for the other.

He felt that familiar engagement that filled his spirit for the discrete time period of any conversation. Then, some combination of his weight draining as the elevator climbed, and the height he reached from conversation with the couple left him exalted. He bid a genuine goodbye and the couple exited.

Swivel turned left, he headed downstairs. As the distance between the elevator and floor fell, so did he. He was deflated. The period after speaking left him with nothing. It was during, and no other time, that he was full. In the absence of being full, he was empty. Being seen made him, and being unseen took him away.

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