Vend
I was born in a smoky, forgotten corridor. The faint sounds of furious typewriters and harried yelling were the first things I heard. The man who ushered me into the world was far too old for his line of work - clutching his aching back, shaking his head at me. I'd continue to see him every week for a year, until a man with the same features but a younger complexion took his place. Our little ritual. Almost tender, really, the way he'd get me back in shape, ready to face the world and its daily indignities.
I was popular at first. Nothing like seeing the wonder on people's faces when they met me for the first time. Children were a rare joy - brimming with excitement that their parents couldn't hope to keep up with. It didn't matter. I still felt a sense of kinship when they, defeated by their offspring's begging, touched me and pleaded with me to give them a few moments of peace.
A lot of men, at first. Mustard stains on their ties, irritation at discovering an empty cigar case turning to relief as they rounded the corner. More women with time. And a gaping void of age developed, too. Over time, the middle aged men became older, richer men, but younger faces - hungrier faces - filled the gaps that opened. The cigars vanished. The smoke cleared.
I took my first beating in 1993. It was half-hearted. A woman in a teal, double-breasted suit got frustrated with me and hit me on the shoulder. I felt bad. I relented, and she calmed. She was the first of many over the next few years. Others weren't so kind. One man, sweat at his temples, carrying a box of his belongings and muttering about political correctness gone mad, spent twelve minutes cursing at me and then drove his shoulder into my face. I held firm at first. I'd developed boundaries. But then he sank to his knees and broke down sobbing while his former colleagues gingerly stepped around him. I had to give him something. If not out of sympathy, then at least to avoid further embarrassment.
I saw the typewriters carried out and replaced with computers. Eventually, too, those computers were replaced by other computers, and again, and a final exodus accompanied by heavier backpacks and - eventually - handheld devices. Two years of silence at one point while I gathered dust, no-one in sight - even my weekly visits from the man with the younger face ground to a halt.
A slow return to business, but never quite at the frantic pace of decades past. And I was ignored now - no longer an active participant in the lives of those who passed me every day. Someone taped a handwritten note to my chest. REDRO FO TUO.
One day, a distant blast. Sirens, screams. Darkness. And more silence. For months, nothing but the occasional smashed window.
And then, the most peculiar thing. The man with the younger face, now with the same laugh lines as his predecessor, the same backache, the same shake of his head - came back to visit me. Once a week, like clockwork. Cleaning me. Clearing me out. Filling me up. The two of us, playing to a non-existent audience, but playing nonetheless. As the cracks formed in the walls and I saw sunlight for the first time, we found peace in an absurd routine.