Everything written after 2am and tagged night shift.
Mid call, a text says the ceiling's leaking at home. I finish in my customer service voice and can't find my real one after.
the schedule went up on the corkboard tonight and the last week just keeps going without my name in it.
The floor's empty on the late shift and her mug is still at the back of the cabinet, where I keep moving it so no one grabs it by accident.
a coworker quit months ago, but the meeting he set up still goes out every tuesday, and i can't make myself delete it.
i take the 2:10 home after close. it's always empty. except for him.
I can close this whole store with my eyes shut. Eleven years. Tonight I let myself picture handing in the keys.
A guy buys one banana and a Monster at 2:15 every night. Tonight he didn't come and I kept watching the door.
The scanner in my hand counts every second I'm not picking. Tonight I stood in the dead spot between two aisles just to watch the number climb.
Nobody does laundry at 3am because they have to. I think I just wanted somewhere with light and a sound that wasn't my own head.
My phone rerouted me off my own exit tonight, and I wasn't even using the GPS. The part I can't explain is what came after.
They cut the second closer. Now it's just me, the walk-in, and a checkmark for a goodbye.
Last one on the floor, drafting the same resignation I never send. Some nights the office quits before you do.
Three of us stock the store overnight. The front doors lock at eleven. At 2:40 the open-chime went off and none of us were near it.
Three nights running I'm the last one out. Tonight the only other person in the building, the cleaner I've never spoken to, stopped her cart at my desk.
Everyone left the office at seven. The motion lights go dark when you stop moving — and tonight they started coming on by themselves.
Last one on the office floor, a two-line resignation that won't leave the drafts, and a mug from a company that doesn't exist anymore.