Fluorescent lighting and a dirty cement floor

I work as a file clerk in a the basement of a government building. There are millions of files containing pension information for anyone who has ever worked in the city. Every person has an electronic record but we are obligated to store paper copies as well. Why? No one knows. But they pay me to do it, and here I am, three weeks into a job that I needed desperately, threat of eviction looming via red text slipped under my apartment door.

The room is enormous. Aisles aren't for individual letters but rather 3-4 letter combinations. STRA-STRE, THEA-THEO, and on and on, each aisle larger than a public school hallway. Every day I arrive to several carts filled with files that need to be filed, as well as a pull list for people who have died, whose files need removing. I don't know where those files go. I place them in the cart marked deceased, wheel them to the back door, and they disappear. Cease to matter for the purposes of record keeping, perhaps cease to matter at all.

Sometimes I read their names aloud before placing the file on the cart, the dead people. Wondering if anyone is thinking of them. Wondering if no one is, and if that means I will be the last person on earth to say their name. Me, a poor ratty nobody who needs a haircut, with old gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe that I haven't bothered to try and clean off. I just accept the sticky feeling of walking lately. Adds to the wind that enters through the holes in my toes, and the rainwater that seeps in through my heels. Sometimes I apologize to them for this, how disappointing to be last thought of on earth by me. What if they were a great composer, or a brilliant engineer, and I taint their legacy with my contribution. But I do it anyways. Because what if they were someone like me? What if no one said their name ever, what if they left no markings, no echoes of their being, no meaningful traces of a life lived? What if all that was left of them were their pathetic old belongings being carted off to the nearest charity shop. A pair of yellowing sneakers with grimy laces that sit on the shelf unwanted, until the shop finally bins them. A statue of a tabby cat, it's one ear chipped off, that they used to pet as if it was real, talk to about their day because there was no one else around, being slogged into a pile of waste. Rodents and insects burrowing within and seagulls pecking from above, looking for sustenance, this one-eared ceramic cat an annoyance to even them.

Every day I plug away at my task, until I can't anymore. You gotta get into the flow, an inappropriately cheery voice said to me once, from somewhere. But there is no flow. All it takes is one bad file. One that's slightly too fat to squeeze into the miniscule space, requiring me to put everything down and shift the other files on the shelf around to make space for it. Or one that's slightly too thin to keep its shape and as I try to slide it in, it bends and folds instead, stubbornly refusing to enter. In these moments I swear at my gummy old shoes and dump my remaining files behind the shelves instead, allowing them to flutter into the abyss, gone forever. There's just enough space back there, and not quite enough guilt in me. I can't escape these moments though without the recognition that I'm less than others. Those who make sure every clipped fingernail goes into the garbage and who never flick the dried bit of lotion onto the floor. Those who wash their sheets weekly and always scrub between their toes. Those who spill water and clean it up immediately so that no one slips on it or so it doesn't rot the wood floor. The somebodys of the world.

There went today's stack. And my day had barely started. 12 minutes, I scribbled, in the little black moleskin notebook I keep in my pocket. Tracking my decline. 3 minutes earlier than yesterday. No wonder I can't keep a job. I had found the little book abandoned on the subway on my way to my first shift. Empty, could be an anything for anyone. I have no thoughts worthy of a notebook this important looking, but I keep it in my pocket as if I do. It is the nicest thing I own.

It was Tuesday.

Lunch break, I muttered to a silhouette working in another aisle, as I left to get some food. I had a dollar ninety in my wallet, and got some fries from a truck that smelled like grease and feet. The sharp and painful sounds of the city scraped my eardrums, as I shielded my eyes from the harsh glare of the sun. I watched a small child with dirt on its face chase a glass-eyed pigeon, screaming at it, squealing in delight as the creature bobbled away like it couldn't stop dancing to a predetermined beat, even in fear.

Hey, you called?

I squinted at the shadow standing in front of my cart, my eyes still blinded from the sunshine that I just returned from.

Nah lady, I didn't call anyone. Do you mind? I gestured to the cart I was just itching to get back to.

Yes you did, you called me, I heard it, I saw you. Took me a few minutes to get here, but I'm here.

I could still barely see her, jeans and sandals, maybe? Dark hair... brown skin... something like that. Not anyone I recognized from the file room, but who could she be, a janitor or something?

You got the wrong person, lady. Try the next aisle.

She shuffled impatiently. Marguerita Giordana Gonsalves. You said my name, you asked who I was, you asked if I was loved.

I froze. The files.

What the -? How did you -?

She sat, and I sat. Side by side, our backs leaning on the massive shelf, I wondered if she was going to slip through it like a vapour, or if it didn't actually work like that. We said nothing for a few moments.

Until I finally asked.

So, were you loved, then?

She began to cry softly.

I nodded.

Have you ever received a gift? I asked.

She shook her head, no longer saying words, her body becoming transparent. I could tell she was leaving soon.

I reached into my pocket and handed her the little moleskin notebook. It's not much, I said, I'm sorry that I wrote in it. You can just rip those pages out and start again. If you can write and stuff, I don't know if that's a thing for you guys.

She accepted the gift, and became the flickering fluorescent lighting and the dirty cement floor. She was gone.

My phone buzzed with a message. A voicemail. Law office of... calling about... estate of.. no living heirs... your name.. 20,000 dollars...

With trembling hands, I called the number back.

Just one odd stipulation, the voice said to me, pausing for a moment before it continued, you have to use part of the money to get a new pair of shoes. It says yours are disgusting. Literally says that. There's a little torn paper note taped here that goes on for an odd while actually, explaining how to put your shoes in the freezer to remove gum. Some random numbers on the back that I couldn't make sense of, but you can have it with the funds if it's meaningful to you. Anyways, I'm sorry for your loss.