Ready, set, sit!

Bump.

And she got the seat! The lady next to her moved forward and sat on the next seat forward than just plumping down to the first available one she passed. And that let her grab one for herself.

Comfy she was then, she even took off her coat as a preparation for the long bus wait that was coming up next.

20 minutes of unavoidable rest.

All day she was working as a floor attendant at a private preschool, she was basically cleaning all day. Doing the same thing day after day and having to take every whim that came to the minds of people that were more important than her, at least to their minds.

She loved little children and was happy to be the one making their environment clean and safe. Some other floor attendants had an attitude, among the other ones, sometimes towards the teachers that actually cared and tried to make their job easier at times. She had no problem sweeping up lentil and corn kernels from the same floor that was swept a class hour before. That was her job.

She was smiling and didn’t gossip.

God only knew what people thought they got through gossip, in the end there was only bitterness.

Teachers came and went frequently, the place wasn’t very prestigious, it was picking mostly newly graduated ones that didn’t know what was expected of them and their salary was on the lower side. New teachers were coming there so they could get the experience.

She was 55. All her life she remembered herself cleaning, her parent’s house, hers and her husband’s house and more houses and buildings, mainly schools, over the years. She had 2 more years left to get her pension but she wouldn’t have minded working more.

If not for the transit home…

A bus to go from preschool to subway. A 20 minute subway ride and then again a 40 to 50 minute bus ride to finally reach home. Don’t even think about the waiting time, the line to get in, that sometimes was just too big.

On a normal day, not a lucky one, that with some extraordinary luck she could get a seat on the 40 minute bus ride, her only chance to sit was her subway ride. Though again many people were waiting, there was a kind of an unspoken law… the desperate, tired ones could get a seat at the station she was boarding. The difference was in the size and intensity of one steps. Some people everyday decided to leave the race and enter the subway like civilized human beings and wait standing.

Sometimes she did that too. That day she was tired so she pushed forward. Unbelievable how many years using the city’s transportation system could turn even her, a very calm and polite person, to compete for a subway seat. To consider doing that normal.

Some other people weren’t as lucky as her to get a seat even though they had tried for one. Every year coming and going around with the same subway ride, the first bus’s itinerary was very stable and rarely she was back in the line to board, she came to recognize the people that were using the same one as her. She would see many of them again and again and they would see her too. After seeing them for a period she was always starting to create their life story in her mind. Sometimes she had the urge to just say good morning or good evening but she swallowed it.

People mostly didn’t want to talk at the subway. Sometimes mostly older people would try to pick the minds of the younger ones; it was most of the times unwelcome. She could understand it from the young people’s short answers and the avoidance of eye contact.

 That short skinny lady that must be in her line of work didn’t get a seat. She deserved it. She had been pushed by her many times … and seen other people being pushed too. Even though people were more direct in competing for a seat there were still some lines not to be crossed.

The area she was working had many private preschools and kindergartens and their teachers were almost all using this subway. A company of four of them that she mostly saw everyday managed to get some seats and to actually sit together. When she was younger she would have never sat when older people were onboard but the times had changed. Along with them and her ideas.

She didn’t begrudge them that they were sitting, they had a right too, after a hard day working, and if you looked at their faces; hard work was obvious, hard work and dealing with people and their problems. Some older people were standing but you could see that it didn’t bother them, it seemed like younger people were getting tired more easily these days.

Nevertheless she gave a quick look around. The people that sat got their books, tablets or phones out; shared some happy or bad happening of the day with coworkers or friends if they had. Most of them sat back and closed their eyes. Like an unspoken rule it seemed that always the people that really needed it they were sitting.

She was happy that she got to keep her seat. So she closed her eyes too.

When she would get home her husband would have dinner and tea ready. She got married and had kids young. At that time they had their own houses. Her husband, who was a little older than her, worked hard and retired some years ago. He was a nice man. He would be smiling.

Her breathing was getting slower and deeper; she was neither awake nor asleep. She was somewhere in the middle, like it only happens during subway rides. And her eyes would open when it would be time for her to get off.

She would open the door and take off her shoes before entering the house. She would stretch her toes and she would be free of her handbag and her restrictive winter clothes. A glass of crisp clear water would come next.

One more bus ride to get home.