11

Sleep hadn’t extinguished his headache. It had pressurised since his foot was trampled and had only released slightly, or he was more used to it being chronic. His time had been uncontrollably filled with viewing things in their first and new light. The singular windowpane on the north wall of his room had a full undisturbed layer of dust. The smell of it was completely full too. As he moved, the hairs of his nose combined with the dust particles and he was half suffocating. He swung extended arms around the room erratically, grabbing a broom and striking at the skirting, window pane, door handles, bedposts and carpet.

He had unsettled every particle that had previously been resting and he was being sanded. With a breath, close to his last, he steadied his foot on the pane and, managing a small amount of purchase, wrenched the window open on his third go. It popped up in a dramatic slam and hit the top of the frame. Stuck. He jolted and had shocked himself before returning to sucking in breaths. The dust was vacuumed out by the open air and the light exposed the pace at which it left. He was confused and his heart was beating fast. This type of agitation was new and too hot. He had never known a dissatisfaction with his surroundings before. Things happened around him like neutral parties, like sworn observers, neither uplifting or transgressing against him. Presumably, before, he would have been forcefully drawing air in against its wishes, despite the dust, and living with his lungs half full. Sharing the space with all the particles. The smell of it revolted him now.

He grabbed his uniform off of the cupboard door from which it was hanging from the handle. The work day had begun, but for once he was not physically prepared and on the way he was agitated by having to do it. He recalled how the last day’s service had annoyed him so greatly. If he was to have to stand and lose the blood flow to the soles of his feet, perhaps it didn’t have to be so noisy. Or perhaps it could be noisy and he wouldn’t hate it. In any case, the day was well underway.

One foot in front of the other he exited through the door. In leaving, he felt totally singular. He had never actually seen anyone leave through the accompanying five doors in his hallway. Was it just him? Well, one had a natural light seen through the streak of underneath the door and another looked particularly derelict. The rest unexceptional and blank. The feeling of wanting to see who, or what, occupied each location didn’t feel like it came from himself – like it was someone else’s idea using him as a vehicle. It was he who was viewing the thought, but not the one generating it. While he did feel like it was he who woke up this morning, who put on his uniform, who was assaulted by dust, it felt as if another individual was urging him to move forward and move outward.

He chalked it up to his combative morning with that dust. Something was truly burgeoning. He assumed his posture for the day.

The first person who wanted to use the lift wore browns of all different shades and chewed the inside of her cheek. The second, a smaller lady, mumbled her thoughts as if they were working their way out of her head. The third was a man who bounced as he walked and collided with the railing attached to the back wall of the lift as a way to come to a halt.

The fourth was the squawky lady with the clattering heels. She wasn’t familiar to him. With each step, her heel clattered unabated and noisily. These were the same box-heeled gongs, that announced that she wanted to be heard and that she was there, from her last appearance. She waltzed in, on drums, and locked eyes with the liftman. She was taken aback that the previously inanimate operator was using his eyes. She halted, stiffened and the hairs on her neck raised. They hadn’t broken eye contact for all of five seconds.

“Let us go shall we?” She exhaled once in a nervous laughter. The smile she paired it with was a muted version of its former self – dipping her toes into this conversation.

He was too taken by her for no apparent reason. The recent complexity and possibility of each individual meant that his preferred corner of the floor was no longer of interest. The red lip-sticked lady, who tried to dress away her scrawniness, could actually be more than what she seemed to be. As with each of the previous customers, he had been making them feel uncomfortable with the extended gazing he let himself do. He was out of practice and slow to know that he couldn’t put people at ease in that way. It couldn’t be helped; each person was a locus of intense wonder. He’d have to hone the intensity of his glares if he wished to access anything further than fear and precaution. This was only for those who noticed him as a person that was. For them, he could continue staring with his mouth agape.

It took ten seconds before her natural desire to be seen overrode any caution.

“They aren’t too bad, you know. Your eyes. It looks like you’re in there.”

Out came the familiar shit-eating grin. The liftman’s body made a move to speak but no thoughts had come together yet. This movement to speak was no doubt his own but it felt frail compared to his current mode of silence.

“Ground- no?”

“Yes, ground. Ground as always. Ground as in the ground from my last trips. Ground for the fifth time. Someone would think you hadn’t been with us for very long. What do they say? Born yesterday? In any case, my day is too busy for this. Have you seen the look I have all over me? It’s the look of someone who is going to be cast. Cast in what? Keep an eye out. I’m serious.”

The rhetorical nature of her speaking might have suggested at one point a genuine question would come about to engage her partner. This was not so. She had a narrative for herself that was steadfast and had been in motion since she could remember. It would take a lot for her to renege against it, and to what explosive consequences that would lead to. He did appreciate how her sentences rolled from one to another.

All the while, she had been speaking through bared teeth, almost as if the force of her speaking was one degree from dangerous.

He didn’t respond to her. This wasn’t because he was absent, but because there really was no point to enter with the way she spoke. Each point connected to the next in a spiel that was well rehearsed. He was not the only person to hear something similar that day and each person could be swapped out for the last.

They arrived at the ground floor.

“Ground, ma’am.”

“Ma’am you say. That’ll make up for some of this ride. Tell me when the other one is on. I like that one. He doesn’t smell like dust.”

“The other one?”

She huffed and clattered out the foyer.

The other one? He hadn’t considered that there was another one of him. Only for a moment did he think about it before being taken up by his other more important thoughts. There still was a place of comfort in his internal world all this while. It just didn’t come so frequently and involuntarily as it used to. It was respite from the exposure he had had recently, but it seemed unreal and removed now. He let out a breath that was deep inside him.

The bell rung for the seventh and he climbed the floors. In came three people. Two men and one woman. The woman and one of the men were exchanging glances whilst the third was watching them. As soon as they had done this, the liftman was trying to understand it. They must have a fledgling romance and the other one must be stuck just outside of it all. No, actually these two are the least comfortable of the trio and don’t know who looked first at the other but can see someone, who they keep missing, looking at them in their periphery. No, actually it smells like dust and those two have the most sensitive noses and the other is none the wiser. Dust yes, dust. Oh god, dust.

He looked at his work jacket and saw the right sleeve covered from shoulder to wrist in a thick grey film of dust. His fingertips had complete dark grey circles on them. They must be looking at him and he felt naked. He wrenched the swivel left further than it could go and hoped the lift would go faster. It kept its consistent pace. His nakedness was only relevant in so long as the others could see it. He’d happily stand in the lift naked if there was no one to use it. And if there was no one to use it he’d probably still be standing in the lift.

He rotated his feet in nervousness and became the fourth person exchanging glances. This give and take of eyes was too much for him. There was too much information in each of them. The corner of the floor was much more interesting, or at least it wasn’t confusing, it was static and simple. This time, however, the occupants were following where his eyes were going. He was after all the master of the lift and the one to look to for lift related crises.

The danger of ever entering a conversation and becoming the focus of another person’s attention was becoming much too apparent to him. He was boiling hot.

The ground came quickly enough and they left. The fresh foyer air drew out parts of the dust. In passing, he spotted the shrewd manager speeding through the foyer with a pile of paper under his right arm and a mug in his left hand.

Oh. I should tell him, he thought. The tiling, it’s disgusting. Well I don’t mind. I think that’s what people have said. It seems a lot older since last I looked at it but I don’t have an issue. Still it would be worth saying, right?

“A-”

He raised a finger and opened his mouth as if to speak but nothing was prepared to come out. He would have to string sounds into words, and words into coherent sentences if he wanted to convey anything worthwhile.

As he had raised his hand he hit the cage and rattled it rather loudly. He withdrew it quickly and felt the fire and numbness of pain. He snatched it to the right and it engaged the swivel on accident. Offbeat from his body language and facial expression, he began to speak

“Mr-!”

The manager, already startled at the sound of the fence, localised where it had come from. A dribble of the remainder of his warm coffee landed on his hand and seeped into the border of his cuff. He watched as the nervous, undecided looking lift operator ascended upward with a fearful expression on his face. He was trying to conjure the manager’s name but it was fruitless. The manager, on seeing his rising face, his shoulders, his waist and then his feet as the lift went up, considered the quiet comedy that was unfolding in front of him. It made no sense. He returned to walking after five long seconds and tried to remember what he was doing in the first place. Odd, he thought.

The liftman watched the floors pass in front of him. He did not let go of the swivel. Floor one. Floor two. Three. Four. Eight. Nine. The bell rang but he let it sit. He didn’t feel like answering it just yet. He was bruised. His recent blunder sounded in his head like a flurry of mismatched sounds, thoughts, wants, actions and sights. He sure was sore. The pulsating ache returned.

As it was, the lady, previously sharing glances, had only thought that the liftman was reasonably well-built and tall, if not awkward. The man had thought it too. They were using their eyes to refer to an older conversation they had had. In that conversation, they had said they actually liked those features.

She had smelt the dust though.

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