Indispensable - A Hypertext Short Story - Page 1
She realized she was feeling out of place sitting in her seat, watching trees fly past her window. It was not being on the train she was on that felt foreign to her, it was where she was in the train. It was the comfort of being free of an imminent responsibility, it was being out of sight. She looked up and watched the hostess push the cart filled with food and various drinks out of the compartment she was on and into the next one. Watching from the outside, that was such an unfamiliar sight.
Being in that dress uniform, pushing that cart countless times, she had never really thought about how she looked. She found that funny considering whenever she would walk that corridor, almost all passengers in front of her would constantly look at her yet she had never thought about what they saw. Actually, there was no need to. Even though she would spent a considerable time being looked at, nobody actually looked at her for who she was. She reckoned not for how she looked either. She was not a person to them but an intermediary or a nuisance. She was the bringer of the sandwiches and tea or simply the upcoming interruption to a well feeling travel nap. She was someone who was awaited for something. It was that something that mattered, not her. She sincerely doubted if anyone ever remembered her once they were off the train. It didn't matter though. She had not complaints. In some ways she liked hiding in plain sight behind that cart as much as she was accustomed to it. Similarly, she liked sitting in her seat now, watching out of the window. Hiding again, this time between the passengers.
She had been working at this job for five years now. Riding on that train for five years. From Istanbul to Ankara with all the stations in between and then back, everyday. A good part of her life was spent moving fast, covering a long distance as she slowly walked a short one. The idea of traveling did sound good to her once. It had been her fantasy for quite a while, even though in a different way. She still liked it, though she despised it, she had accepted it. She would literally just roll with it.
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