My job was to switch off what people forgot. Monitors. Meeting-room lights. The kettle someone always left boiling. At midnight, I checked six floors, signed a sheet, and went home.
The sixth floor had twelve offices. I know because I cleaned twelve wastebaskets every night for seven years. On Thursday there were thirteen. The new door had frosted glass and a brass plate that read COMPLAINTS.
Inside, a woman was typing with two fingers. Each keystroke sounded like a tooth striking a plate. “You are late,” she said. On the desk were the things I had lost: a wedding ring, a hospital parking ticket, a small blue mitten.
“I don’t work here,” I told her.
“You have filed a complaint every night,” she said. “Sometimes without words.” She slid a form across the desk. Under Remedy requested, someone had written: One more minute.
Through the glass behind her, I saw a hospital corridor. A doctor was walking toward a door. I knew the door. I knew the instant before it opened. The woman placed a pen beside my hand.
“Payment?” I asked.
“The minute after.”
I signed. The hospital corridor brightened. For sixty seconds I held a hand that had stopped being warm seven years before. I said everything badly. I said everything twice. Then the doctor opened the door.
At midnight now, I sit behind the thirteenth door. I type with two fingers. The light stays on until someone who has lost something important walks down the hall.