Eleven Years of the Same Loop

i'm the one who closes. eleven years now. i could do it blind — count the till, flip the mats, kill the lights in the order that won't trip the breaker, the cooler last so it doesn't groan. the overhead music shuts off at eleven but the system plays one more song before it cuts, always the same one, some soft nothing from 2009, and i mop the front to it every night like a little private ritual nobody assigned me.

most nights i don't think about anything. tonight a kid came through at quarter to with a single energy drink and that face i used to have, the one that's somewhere else already, and i rang him up and said get home safe and watched him go and just stood there.

i'm forty-three. i started here to cover a gap. the gap is most of my life now. i know which tiles are loose and which regulars are dying and exactly how the door sounds when it locks. and tonight, mopping to that same dumb song, i did the thing i never let myself do — i actually pictured handing in the keys. not angry, not a scene. just setting them on the counter and walking out into a parking lot that wouldn't be mine anymore.

then the song ended, the way it does, and i finished the floor, the way i do. i'll be here tomorrow. i just didn't used to have to decide that every night.