5

Through until Thursday the liftman operated as usual. His way of living was much akin to autopilot. It gave him time to think. It was all it gave him. Moreso it gave himself time to sense. He was a sensing limb as an extension of something he quite couldn’t tell.

What he was thinking about was a separate issue. Even if his thoughts were not spectacular to the tastes of most people, they had still enough worth to be ordered into a hierarchy and as such, the thought that rested at the top was naturally the most captivating of the bunch.

Here it was that rested his major preoccupation. Some nulled form of feeling was rooted as the centre and primary consideration. It concerned his wondering about wondering. Why was he wondering about wondering? Why would he wonder then about that? Sure, a fair and respectable thought for most to have, but in this instance it was a spread, vapid objection to the world in front of him and it came only in the form of a feeling. It wasn’t an explicit thought. It was a gentle tint on the world and he wasn’t seeing it. If he knew that he was rejecting most things while he was lulled by it, he might have taken up it’s roots.

That question had been ready, in waiting, for some time. It waited for its time of meeting. Idly, it sat, seeping into the scope of his little perceptual world. A perceptual world more constrained than the shabby terracotta-lined crate.

It tinted more than he knew. His compounded wondering was the exact thing that stunted his wondering about anything else. His wondering had been eating itself.

While comfortably in this familiar spot of thought, he heard the bell ring. He descended to the bottom floor for the call. At the floor, he lined the dugout to his crate, cinched the fence and waited. In strolled an inconspicuous and stout man of much less than average height with hands behind his back. His right held his left wrist, in tension, against the rim of a thin silver watch’s band, as if it had taken some effort to put his shoulders behind him. His still full, silver hair parsed down the middle and was kept trim.

The entry of a passenger restored him to the minimally sentient mode he typically took.

The older man took two, maybe three, looks at the liftman throughout the journey. These looks were not matched. It was true that the older man himself felt best placed around reserved and predictable company. He was by no means averse to conversation, but in his time had found it the most sustainable way of being. With a slighted smirk, he enjoyed it.

A second bell had rung meanwhile and the liftman stopped on floor three. A proud lady stepped inside. With each step she clattered a thick-square heel against the copper floor. Each made a piercing clap as though no effort was taken to soften their blows. The old man winced with each note but remained outwardly plain.

“Another day, you must’ve been waiting for me? Not a bad price to pay”

She didn’t look at any person as she said this. She had, within only the first interaction, invited the older man to hate her.

The fourth floor came. The older man made a move toward the exit. On his way out he gestured his palm up toward the liftman. His gesture too, had fallen flat. Like the lady of Monday’s couple, he was a man for pleasantries. It wasn’t of any particular bother to him whether people performed them. It was more a chance for people to be liked by him than hated for it. An intrigue had been fostered toward the weekday’s liftman.

The fence shut, the swivel turned right and they headed to the ninth.

“It’s not often people I can’t get people to bow for me you know”

She let this out of her mouth involuntarily, jerking her heels together and directing a shit-eating grin at the liftman. She waited. The friendly air she expected to come back at her was filled with the silence typical of the liftman. At a second attempt at being seen, she leant and tried to force her eyes into his eyeline. Up until now he had seemingly been, finger on the swivel, eyeing up a particularly interesting corner of the floor. It was not easy for her to contort into the necessary posture to force her gaze upon his. In her effort, she had seen that, yes, he had eyes but remained unsure as to whether he used them.

As he was indeed human, a fast shrill disturbance moved through him but there was nothing he lingered on. His many more important thoughts took back over.

She was sure she had seen him move in response. Only a brief image in memory, not set or particularly clear, remained in her mind. It wasn’t something to be entirely sure of but she would be willing to bet on it. This said more about her than the circumstances. Her impulsive actions continued. She rapped her knuckles in sequence from pointer to pinkie, the fence shuddered, and she had indicated her desire to leave. It wasn’t her stop but she wanted to reclaim the situation. His body knew it wasn’t the floor but heard the wishes of her shirty outburst. On the seventh, she had elected to take the stairs in protest.

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