Last Dryer at the Laundromat
the dryer says four minutes. i realized i have nowhere i need to be when it stops.
Nobody does laundry at 3am because they have to. The machine could've run tomorrow. I think I just wanted to be somewhere with light and a sound that wasn't my own head.
There's one other guy here. We haven't looked at each other once. He's watching the muted TV bolted to the wall, an infomercial for a knife cutting a shoe in half. The coin slot ate my last quarter and I let it.
My dryer says four minutes. I keep watching the number like it's counting down to something. It isn't. When it hits zero I'll fold a week of clothes nobody's going to see me wear and drive home the long way so the song finishes.
That's the whole thing. Four minutes, then I go find another four minutes. I used to think being an adult would feel like arriving somewhere. It feels like keeping the dryer going.
Three minutes now. I'm in no hurry. There's nothing on the other side of the warm clothes.
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