den usynelige

It's not her imagination. It happened the last time she was here, and it certainly happened all the time when she lived here.

There are those glass doors -- in banks, post offices, in front of the 7-11s belching the perversely tempting smell of superannuated frankfurters rolling on the bars of the grill -- the glass doors that slide open in response to some signal from an electric eye. Dørene åpner automatisk, the little sign informs us, we ought not to try to push them in and open ourselves.

She would walk up to them, right up to them, and stand there stupidly as they remained shut. Infuriating. She would wave her arms at them. She restrained herself from addressing them verbally. Eventually, as if the electric eye had been occupied reading a newspaper and had only just noticed her, they would open.

Always it would make her wonder whether she was, in fact, invisible. It would have fit with so many other things.