Locker Fourteen Still Says His Name
His name's still on the locker list, four months gone. One lit up under it, and I still have the key.
i go down to the mailroom out of habit now, not because anything ever comes. it's empty most nights except the vending machine humming and the locker board on the wall, the screen that shows which units have parcels waiting.
his name's still on unit fourteen. four months since he moved every box he owned into a truck and this one thing didn't go with him, some line in the building's system nobody updated. i've seen it every week and told myself it doesn't count as checking if i'm already down here for my own mail.
tonight fourteen is lit red. something's inside it. nobody who lives there now ordered anything, because nobody lives there now. it's just me down the hall and a locker with his name still typed above the slot.
i still have the spare key. i never gave it back because he never asked, and i never mailed it either, because that felt like an event and this was supposed to be nothing.
i stand there a long time without opening it. i just want to know it's true, that something of his still finds its way here months after he stopped needing to. then i check my own box out of the same habit. it's empty, like always. i stand there anyway, the way you do when you're not really checking for mail.