The overhead lights hummed, a steady vibration that felt like it was settling into the concrete floor. Near closing, the air in the backroom staging area always held that specific smell of dust and cardboard pulp. A pile of discarded plastic wrap lay near the corner where two stacks met—the ones for the seasonal displays. My job was simply to count them all, making sure every empty box had its corresponding label attached before the final sweep. I ran my hand along a stack’s side; the printed labels were faded now, edges softened by handling and grit residue that coated everything. The stacks themselves were supposed to be neat, but they never stayed that way for long. Every few minutes, when I looked away or shifted my weight, one of the boxes would seem to tilt just a fraction more than it should. It wasn't a collapse; it was a slow, almost imperceptible slide—a subtle shift in angle that threw off the entire alignment of the corner where they met. I’d adjust the top box back into place and check the adjacent stack, only for the opposing pile to settle with a faint scraping sound against the concrete floor. It felt like the room was correcting itself, trying to force them into an arrangement that simply didn't exist in any current season’s layout. I started marking down the numbers on my clipboard, noting how many boxes were supposed to be here versus how many I could physically count before they settled again. The movement wasn't dramatic; it was just a persistent wrongness—a slow drift toward an impossible geometry. It required constant, minor pressure to keep them upright and facing outward, as if the sheer weight of their misplaced arrangement was trying to pull them back into some previous configuration. I kept my focus on the corner junction, tracing the faint lines where two different stacks met at a slightly off-kilter angle, waiting for the next slow correction before I could finish the count.
hush · restless