Median

Median


The Daily Record


The kitchen light was always left on a few minutes longer than necessary. Not out of fear; out of habit. The small square window looked out onto the open, where voices rose distorted, as if they had first passed through water. Someone was washing dishes. Someone was talking on the phone in a low voice. A television was playing the news without anyone listening.


Irene was standing in front of the sink, holding her mug without drinking. The tea had gone cold. She could tell by the smell before she even tasted it. She left the mug next to the envelope she had brought with her from work, even though she knew she shouldn't.


It wasn't anything serious, she told herself. Just a pending matter. A mistake in the date. These things happen.


He sat down at the table. The chair creaked, as it did every night. He opened the envelope without haste, as if trying to delay something that still had no name.


The papers had the familiar smell of offices; paper, dust, ink and something else, something human that cannot be described. Benefit applications. Hospitality declarations. Copies of IDs. Signatures.


The same life lines aligned.


He leaned a little closer.


The address was repeated.


Not exactly the same. Same street, different number. Then the same number again on another application. Then another family. Different last name. Same apartment building.


He felt that little tightness that wasn't yet concern. More curiosity.


He closed the envelope.


It's not my job to look for patterns, he thought. My job is to help people.


And yet, the thought didn't go away.


In the apartment opposite, someone laughed loudly. The laughter stopped abruptly, as if remembering that it was not supposed to be heard.


He turned off the kitchen light and went into the living room. The city outside spread out in small illuminated squares. Every window a story he would never learn. Every light a persistence.


She lay down without taking off her clothes.


I thought many times that if I stopped thinking about people after work, I would be better. More rested. More clear. But every time I tried, I felt like I was abandoning someone in mid-sentence.