A Slight Difference

I’ve begun to notice, albeit slowly, that the world I observe and the notion I have of it are completely different from one another.

I could see it, touch it, and hear it, but the image I conjured in my mind was completely different from what my senses recognized as reality.

As I grew older, I decided to take it as it was—or perhaps I had simply become too lazy to keep correcting those differences, but either way the outcome remained the same.

That was what I had been thinking about while my woodworking teacher questioned why I hadn’t notified him that my locker had been broken into, and all I could offer in reply was, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean—you ‘don’t know’?” he remarked, confused. “You don’t find it weird that someone broke into your locker?”

He seemed to be asking himself rather than me, so I simply stared in silence, letting him continue. I didn’t want my response to be the wrong interjection.

“What do you keep in there—what happens if someone takes your wallet?” he kept asking himself, and I realized my instinct had been correct.

“What was in there?” he asked again. “Do you even remember?”

Instead of giving the same mute response, I shifted my eyes toward the upper-left corner, as if I were trying to remember something—even though I wasn’t.

He didn’t follow my eye sight, instead he kept looking over me. I was not part of this conversation, it seems my intuition had been correct yet again.

“I’ll ask around Class C,” he said with his gaze still hovering just above my head. “I had them yesterday afternoon—maybe someone saw who did this.”

As he signaled his intention to leave, I concluded that this faux conversation was finally coming to an end.

“It ain’t worth much, but that lock is school property,” he remarked with a different inflection. “It’s your responsibility to at least inform me if something happens to our stuff—you know—including the tools we let you use.”

That statement pulled me back into the conversation.

“And the lock is one thing—what if someone had taken the tools we lend you for class?” he said. “Those aren’t cheap either.”

He didn’t give me a moment to sit with my guilt before adding another point. There wasn’t much I could say in return. He simply sent me back to class.

Despite understanding that I wasn’t responsible for the damage done to school property, I was still left conflicted. The questioning the teacher had done—mostly to himself—left me with lingering doubts:

Why hadn’t I seen my locker being broken into as a pressing matter?

Why didn’t I report the situation immediately, instead of letting him find it after I did?

Why was I so uninterested in finding out who did it—or why they did it?

Maybe the answer was too obvious to stir any real concern: someone wanted to steal whatever was inside. Perhaps. But there was nothing in that locker.

Why was it my locker, specifically, that got broken into?

It might be that there was no meaning at all; my locker simply caught the attention of whoever did it that day.

Maybe the act itself had no real meaning to the perpetrator—something done in the drift of an ordinary day, moving from one phase of life to another, unaware of how their actions had affected those around them.

Finding answers to those questions hardly interested me; it was only a sense of self-preservation—a quiet fear of potential repercussions—that stirred any real concern.

The thought that someone’s actions, perhaps not even directed at me, could still result in punishment for the victim seemed absurd.

I’ll admit, the punishment itself hardly troubled me; it was the notion of such an unjust outcome that lingered in my mind, like a dissonance allowed to keep resonating—a discomfort I kept entirely to myself.

As the last period was about to end, everyone had already cleaned out their desks and packed their bags when a student wearing a brown, worn-out shop apron entered the classroom.

He took a look around the class, not really looking at the people inside but scanning it as a whole; the people, in return, weren’t particularly interested in him either.

He approached the teacher, seemingly to ask for something. The teacher, without even looking at the    student, listened while staring straight ahead at the room, immediately finding me with his gaze.

“They’re asking for you in the woodwork shop,” he said, with class already finished and everyone eager to leave.

It didn’t cause any reaction from anyone; the student himself was already out the door by the time I was notified, so I gathered my belongings and headed back to the place I’d been just a short while ago.

Once again in the shop, the remaining students from another class were cleaning and locking away several tools. Some sat at their assigned tables, chatting with their bags slung over their shoulders, done with their part of the cleanup.

My eyes searched for the one in charge of this scene until I spotted him in his office. It was a small section of the shop that had been refurnished into a square made entirely of metal dividers, with just enough space for a chair, a desk, and a small stool. The rest of the cramped area was cluttered with extension cords and half-open tool bags.

On my way there, I had to dodge some of those cords; even though I was sure those heavy-duty cables were meant to be stepped on, I didn’t want to risk getting into more trouble—I can never trust myself not to make a problem worse.

Unsure whether to make my presence known, or if the teacher had already seen me, I stood in the doorway of his small office, waiting for him to acknowledge me.

He was reading some documents that appeared to be a list of materials, with names and other text—perhaps an inventory of everything inside the shop.

“You know where Class C is, right?” he asked, confirming my presence in the room. I didn’t need to make myself known.

“I’ll need you to go there and bring me a student—her name’s Sarahi,” he said, delivering both a piece of information and a command. Then he fell silent, signaling that there was nothing else I was needed for. Even I understood that much.

I did know how to find the class he mentioned—it would only take looking around at the plates with the names and letters of each room on the premises. Logically, the one marked “C” should be next to the building with the “B” rooms.

With this bit of knowledge lifting my spirits, I left the shop and headed straight to the adjacent building where my class was located. Since I was in a “B” class, the one I was looking for should have been nearby. My worry, however, was that I’d been asked to go at a time when most students had already left.

Unsurprisingly, I had never interacted with the student he’d mentioned, nor could I put a face to the name I’d been given. Trying to build an image from the name alone would’ve been foolish—but I couldn’t help myself, so on the walk to Class C, I wondered what this person looked like and if they were still on campus.

I was in luck: a teacher and a handful of students were still in the classroom, but none of them, at first glance, matched the face I’d imagined.

Approaching the teacher, I asked for his help in finding the student I’d been sent to get—still unsure about so many things: who this person was, how they were involved or whether I was just being used to retrieve a student for something that had nothing to do with me.

Lost in thought, I didn’t notice the girl standing next to me. Even if I had, I might have missed her at first—she barely reached my shoulder, yet stood with deliberate stillness that made her seem taller than she was.

Her straight hair was parted down the middle, falling in even lines to about half her neck. A clutter of bangs hung over her forehead, uneven and restless against the otherwise measured way she held herself.

Everything about her seemed to follow a straight line—her posture, her hair, even the expression she carried.

The only exception was her gaze—or rather her right eye, which turned faintly inward, breaking the symmetry. The left one, however, fixed forward with piercing precision, as if all her focus had gathered there.

“What does he need me for?” she asked.

I had no idea. All I could tell her was that I knew as little as she did—aside from the fact that he’d asked for her specifically.

“What if you’re lying to me?” she said, tilting her head slightly, her one straight eye fixed on me. The remark sounded light, but something in it felt like she was waiting for a reaction.

I wavered between reassuring her and brushing it off—it could have been just a passing joke. I pointed out that I’d asked for her by name; someone must have told me who she was, and only a teacher could’ve done that.

“I’m joking! Don’t worry,” she said quickly, the sudden lightness in her voice catching me off guard. “Come on, let’s go.”

We began walking toward the shop, and although she was on the shorter side, her legs looked long for her frame; her walk—like the rest of her presence—was firm.

There was no quiver in her steps: short, steady, and repetitive, like an arpeggiated chord repeating beneath a melody, unchanging yet still in the same key. There was a certain calm in that kind of repetition, a calm I tried to match with the length of my own stride.

“So he didn’t really tell you anything?” she asked once we were halfway there. “Really, nothing?” she pressed again, her tone light but insistent.

“Hopefully we won’t be in trouble,” she added after a pause, smiling. “You can tell me if we are, okay?”

I told her I would’ve, if I’d known. I added that, for all we knew, she might’ve been needed for something completely unrelated to my class. She laughed on her own after that, as if to fill the silence between us.

“Which class are you from,” she asked, now showing interest, or rather just wanting to avoid a silence until we reached the shop.

“So you’re a year younger then?” she added after I mentioned my class, which was a year lower than hers. It had come out as a question, though it felt more like a filler remark—since the answer was obvious. I decided to let her continue speaking; perhaps that was the right choice.

“My name’s Sarahi. I’m from Class C—second year,” she added, giving me information I already knew.

The walk from the classroom to the shop was filled with conversation meant to avoid silence—repetition, after all, is the easiest way to fill empty moments and one of the most effective ways to commit something to memory.

As we neared the shop and I realized this was merely a filler exchange, I relaxed and responded in kind—offering my name, class and even confirming that I was, indeed, a year younger than her. We were reaching the end of this short exchange, where previously shared details resurfaced simply to fill the remaining space before the conclusion—it wasn’t far now.

Despite most of the students having already left the shop, it still held a lingering warmth within its walls—perhaps the heat and energy from the recently used machines still permeated the air. The contrast between the cold wind outside and the dense, almost abrasive warmth inside created a distinct pressure in the atmosphere. The faint chirps of recently cut wood hung in the air—mingling with the scent of sawdust that lightly tickled the nose.

The teacher’s dimly lit office remained unchanged, cluttered with extension cords and scattered tools, making it an effort just to pass through—or at least it had been for me.

For the short girl beside me, however, she moved forward without losing her sense of purpose, walking straight toward the desk—the only area in the entire disordered room that seemed to have been cleaned, with a single object resting on it in solitude: the broken lock. I was uncertain whether he would address my case first or hers.

We were met with silence, the teacher’s gaze fixed on Sarahi. I sensed something was off; what came from him didn’t concern an entirely different matter that had brought her here—but rather one that deliberately bound the two of us together.

“You thought I wouldn’t find out?” the teacher said, breaking the silence as his tone hardened. “You’re going to tell me why you did this, and what you took from the locker.”

There was no need to interpret the accusation—at least not for me, who already understood what he meant. He was accusing her of breaking into my locker.

“And we won’t leave until you tell us,” he continued, his inflection drawing a faint line between us. “That was his locker you broke into, you know.”

The interaction had been entirely one-sided, the two of us just staring in silence. I stole a quick glance at her, but her short stature meant I could only see the top of her hair—a smooth, unwavering line. Something about her whole presence felt rigid in a way I couldn’t quite understand. If I tripped toward her, I’d bounce right off; no force in the world could break her stance.

“Will you at least admit you did it,” our teacher demanded.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. Look—” As if he had expected that answer from the start, he slid the broken remains of the lock across the table. “Now, I’ll give you another chance to tell us why you did it.”

He looked at me again, as if checking whether her admission satisfied me.

We were met with silence—toward me as well, since the teacher kept grouping me with him in this exchange, despite the fact that I hadn’t been a presence in this conversation.

I didn’t want to be a source of pressure for her. Even though the lock was mine, I would’ve preferred not to be involved at all—but I also knew there was no way to pull back now.

Either way, we were not in any conclusion; this was an entirely different section I had not expected, and I was unsure of where it was heading.

So far, the only constant had been her silence. It stretched on longer than what would normally be appropriate; it was, in effect, her answer.

“Alright then,” he said, rising from his chair. “I’ll deal with this later—for now, you’re going to get a new one. You understand?”

After she agreed, she reached toward the broken lock on the table. Before she could take it, he cut in.

“You shouldn’t get one like that,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting into a thin, knowing smirk. He nudged the pieces with a finger. “Get one that won’t break so easily—you know.”

“Alright, let’s make him chose it and then I’ll get that one,” she finally spoke back, including me again by proxy into the argument.

I had an idea as to why she would suggest that—perhaps she wanted the responsibility for choosing the quality of the lock to fall on me instead of her, leaving her only with the task of getting it. For some reason, I was enthralled by this; I wasn’t used to inserting my own suppositions into a conversation, usually just accepting whatever was given without adding anything of my own. Seeing her do that negotiation in a context where she was supposed to be at fault, and toward someone with authority over her, was simply not possible for me.

He paused to consider her suggestion, and even that brief moment of deliberation reinforced his position—he had received a suggestion and instead of dismissing it altogether, he gave it some thought. I couldn’t fully explain it, but the simple act of him thinking it over only highlighted his authority.

“If it’s fine with you, then I don’t see a problem,” he said, shifting his attention toward me. Unlike him, I didn’t mull it over; I agreed quickly.

By logic, that would imply a lack of hesitation, yet I still felt it in my voice. Despite the brief response, it lacked the straight, unwavering quality that came from the girl beside me.

“Good, then,” he said, standing after my affirmation. “Just make sure you get it done before my class tomorrow afternoon. You’ve got today and tomorrow morning.” He gathered the remains of the broken lock and placed them into a sliding drawer behind him—the piece of furniture was so small I hadn’t noticed it before, hidden all this time by him sitting in front of it.

It didn’t seem like there was anything left to discuss, so we hurried out of the shop. I was not relieved, however, since I knew this act was not truly over—not yet.

We walked back toward her classroom from where we had first met. This time there was no noise from students picking up their belongings or chatting in corners while waiting to be let out; they were all gone, their warmth replaced by the much colder evening breeze.

“That was really fucked up, dude,” she spat out without directing her view toward anyone in particular. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for me or just a general complaint. “You could’ve just told me, you know? Why set me up?”

I was taken aback; I hadn’t expected her to shift the blame onto me. I was about to defend myself—that I hadn’t set her up—but the words vanished the moment she turned her gaze toward me.

A moment earlier she hadn’t been looking at anyone, her anger thrown loosely into the air—and then suddenly it was fixed on me, her face held a steadiness that made it clear she wasn’t guessing, she was accusing me.

She kept staring without saying anything more, and in that pause I managed to gather myself—at least enough to try to respond—but I couldn’t meet her eyes. The steadiness of her one straight eye felt like a line I wasn’t allowed to cross, so I let my focus drift upward toward the top of her head, as if the details of her hair had suddenly become essential.

It was a flimsy shield, but the best I could manage. Looking anywhere else felt like an admission. Only then did I admit I didn’t know why she’d been called for.

“Look, man, I don’t care,” she said, turning sharply toward her classroom. Her steps were direct and unyielding—the same straightness that seemed to define her entirely. Her bag was still inside, and she seized it in one clean motion, pulling the strap over her shoulder with a firm tug.

“I am getting the lock for you; I was the one who broke it, after all.” She didn’t look back as she spoke. “I just can’t believe the nerve to do something like that. You really didn’t have to set me up like a coward.”

Despite her continuing to spit out the same accusation, I didn’t feel angry—if anything, I was confused. This situation had arisen from her own actions, yet I found myself feeling guilty. Like her posture—and even her hair—her words were straight to the point, rigid, with no room to twist them into any other meaning. It was unsettling & for a moment I almost doubted my own innocence.

I wasn’t sure how to explain myself or if anything I said would convince her, I really had no idea. If anything, it felt like the teacher had set me up by not warning me beforehand. Did he think I wouldn’t have brought her over if I’d known what it was for? Did he intend to set her up, for some reason? At what point did I become guilty in a situation that had started with me as the victim?

I did, however, have enough awareness not to reject her accusations of cowardice. I hadn’t even spoken during the interaction with the teacher at the shop—at least, I couldn’t remember saying anything. What I did remember was her right eye wandering to the side. For some reason, that detail remained stubbornly fixed in my mind.

“I’ll meet you in Hipodromo tomorrow. We can get the lock and be back before noon.” She had already lost interest in blaming me. “There’s a hardware store down there.”

There wasn’t much for me to do except agree. Today had been one long chain of agreements—not one of which had given me any relief or sense that the situation was any closer to being resolved.

Once we settled the plan for tomorrow, she left. Just like when I first saw her: direct, precise, every step aimed at wherever her point B was. No sway, no hesitation—just the shortest path forward.

Sleeping that night had been difficult; my need for rest was constantly interrupted by an uncomfortable feeling taking root from an accusation I knew was false. While I lay in the droning shadows of the room, another feeling began to surface—or rather, it had always been there, tucked in the background.

It was the cowardice that had kept me paralyzed, that fear was the resonant note sustaining itself beneath the swirl of emotions flooding my mind, an unwavering drone whose unbroken line reminded me of her words and her short, straight hair.

I clung to the reassurance of my innocence, but a short image of her gaze had proved to be more solid, her memory breaking my determination with ease.

By the time I realized, the shadows had engulfed all of the light in the room. Their movement felt quicker than my vision’s attempt to adjust. I tried focusing on a point somewhere but the discomfort in my head had slid down towards my chest, materializing in a pressuring pain.

It wasn’t a sharp, stabbing pain—more like something heavy compressing from within.

It was cold.

I looked down and saw a lock biting into the center of my chest; the cold metal was worse than the pain itself, and each breath pulled it tighter inside me.

Instinctively, I held my breath to keep it from moving, but the cold spreading from the metal as it passed through my chest began seeping into the rest of my body.

It didn’t make me tremble—it froze me.

My movements had been sealed.

I never knew cold could be so deep that it stopped even the shiver.

It had taken a lot of effort just to reach the meeting point outside the plaza; the sunrise warming my skin helped bring some life back into my body, and the steady surge of cars along the boulevard beside me kept my legs steady—as if the noise alone pinned me to the ground.

“Hey.”

The voice came from my right. When I turned, there she was—the girl who had started all of this. Her usual stillness made me straighten up without thinking.

She looked directly at me, and the mounting anxiety inside me began to settle. My focus landed on her right eye—the one that turned ever so slightly inward. The tiny movement was strangely calming, like a detail I could hold onto while everything else kept rushing past.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

She pressed ahead without mentioning anything about yesterday; she already had a new place to get to—a new set of points A and B. I acknowledged it with a nod and followed after her.

I intended to simply follow my role as the selector of the new lock—complete the task and then part ways—while maintaining my distance behind her.

However, the stream of cars kept rushing past us, veering close as they dodged one another. I couldn’t keep my footing at that distance, so I was pushed toward her right side.

Having already walked beside her before, I matched my pace to hers just as I had yesterday. Her movements didn’t sway at all—perfectly straight, perfectly steady.

Unlike those steady movements of hers, I was wavering inside; I was only a shadow mimicking her pace, never close to that straight aura she carried.

I tried to anchor myself to the task ahead, but it was as if I were being tugged along by the leftover wind from the speeding cars—and by my own body conspiring to betray me; I already knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up.

“What’s that?” she asked after my first attempt to speak came out too quietly, so I repeated myself and gave an apology for yesterday. I couldn’t confess to a setup I had no part in, but it wasn’t a lie: none of what happened had been part of my intentions when I brought her to the shop.

“Look,” she said, coming to a sudden stop. Her halt was so controlled that not a single strand of her bangs shifted with the loss of momentum; maybe all that force transferred into me, since I almost kept walking.

“This mess was my doing. I’ll replace the lock. That’s that.” Her gaze locked onto my face, the wandering eye drifting just slightly as she spoke. “But don’t stand there pretending you didn’t know what you were doing. If you’re going to screw me over, at least have the guts to admit it. Don’t play dumb right in front of me.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked past me—resuming her path without the slightest deviation, like a train sliding back onto its rails.

Apologizing again wouldn’t help—she’d made that clear—and her rejection of it lifted a weight I hadn’t even noticed before, leaving me unexpectedly lighter. That small relief, the sudden freedom from needing to seek forgiveness for something I hadn’t done gave me just enough momentum to keep talking to her.

There was still one thing I didn’t know: why she’d done it. So instead of defending myself any further, I asked what she’d been trying to find in my locker.

However, she didn’t reply. Instead, something far more revealing happened: her step faltered—just slightly. For the first time since I’d met her (a grand total of one day), one of her movements wasn’t straight, like a single misplaced note in an otherwise flawless performance.

She stopped for half a breath—just long enough for me to catch it—then shot a quick glare over her right shoulder. The look wasn’t angry; it was defensive, sharp, meant to snap back into place whatever had slipped. She resumed walking a second later, her posture tightening, as if she were trying to erase the moment by outrunning it.

But now I was paying attention, so I told her that if she still needed to find whatever she’d been searching for, I could help—and that produced another wrong note: she stopped again.

“What are you doing? We—certainly I—don’t have all day,” she said, her voice clipped and impatient.

I was interested in understanding her, so I told her that, to me, there wasn’t anything meaningful in that locker—but maybe she believed otherwise. Maybe there was something she thought mattered, something she hadn’t found yet, and if that was the case, I could help her look.

She turned to face me, her voice cooled to a dismissive chill.

“Right. After supposedly not setting me up, now you want to help.”

I didn’t notice it at first, but this was the first time I was facing her gaze. She was piercing me with a strict look, but I didn’t waver.

Still, I was unsure which eye I should look at, so my gaze kept shifting left and right—trying to focus on the pupil centered beneath her brow and then the right pupil leaning toward the small, straight ridge of her nose.

There was a biting pressure born from guilt, but her disappointment stung more deeply than the setup she’d convinced herself I was a part of.

I pressed on and told her, honestly, that I hadn’t done what she accused me of—yet I still felt guilty, and I wanted to make it right somehow.

After answering me with a silent glare, she simply turned around and walked into a hardware store. I had never been here before, but I followed close behind.

Inside, a narrow corridor stretched ahead, metal racks lining both sides—each crammed with different tools, some coated in a thin film of dust, others in the midst of being forgotten.

When she reached the counter, an old, short man acknowledged her with the slightest of glances in her direction. I had never been good at deciphering these kinds of interactions—had that passive acknowledgment been enough for me to greet him as well?

For her, that brief acknowledgment was more than enough; she went straight into her request, asking what kinds of locks they carried—specifically those sturdy enough for a school locker. The old man didn’t seem fazed at all; it was as if her directness was the natural rhythm of things, as ordinary as breathing.

While she waited at the counter for the locks, I finally caught up and stood beside her, feeling her gaze settle on me. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed she was looking up at my face, and I wasn’t sure whether the moment required a small acknowledgment before speaking or if I should wait for a clearer cue. I imagined she must have had something to say after my offer to help—she still hadn’t responded—yet she simply kept looking at me, her left eye pressing forward while the right veered faintly to the side.

As if I were a leaf that had ricocheted from a branch that a gust of wind had torn apart, her straight gaze wobbled all of my fortitude. Even with only one eye holding me in place, the pressure she mounted kept my skin feeling hot—like a singular magnifier focusing a beam of heat directly onto me.

I couldn’t take the pressure and shifted to face her singular lens. After walking beside her for a while, I’d learned a few things that could make her hesitate, so I repeated my earlier request: let me help you.

Whether she had acknowledged my proposal or not, I couldn’t tell—her inquisitive look faded, and she turned her gaze forward. Shortly after, the old man came back with a variety of locks and set them on the counter.

I had intended to let her choose, but the desire to actually help pushed my arms into motion—an impulse I’d thought was long gone—and so, without a word exchanged between us, I began inspecting the locks. Her inaction, I assumed, was permission to take over.

None of the locks drew my attention by sight alone, so I relied on touch instead. Maybe weight and feel were signs of sturdiness, but as with many things, I had no idea if that was true.

I stopped my hand on a smaller lock. It wasn’t particularly sturdy, nor as big as the one I’d owned before, but the feeling of it in my hand was strikingly cold—far colder than the others. The metal cooling against my skin reassured me of its security; somehow I knew this should be my choice.

I set it upright on the counter to signal the old man. The girl didn’t protest or comment on the size—letting me choose and deal with the teacher had been her original intention, yet now this choice was entirely mine.

Once we finished, we headed back out—the buzz of passing cars filling our surroundings again, and the weather feeling noticeably colder. The bag with the lock rattled against my side, the spare change and the note inside making the only sound between us.

I stopped to pull the lock out of the bag and slip it into my pocket. While looking around for a trash can, she approached me; I had assumed she would’ve kept walking.

“I thought I’d left my glasses in your locker.” Her tone suggested she had more to say. “They weren’t in mine, and since it’s right next to yours, I figured maybe I’d put them in there by mistake.”

There was a slight pause in her voice, a kind of careful hesitation I wasn’t used to hearing from her. I could see her usual straightness faltering, even though she stood perfectly still.

“I have to be very careful with my movements without my glasses,” she said, touching her right ear on reflex, perhaps thinking of the lack of pressure on her temple. “My brain ignores what my right eye sees—so it’s hard to tell what I have on my right side without them.”

Despite trying to picture what she described, I still couldn’t quite understand it; instead of pretending I did, I suggested we go back to the woodworking shop and look for her missing glasses together.

“They weren’t there yesterday,” she said, her gaze briefly drifting off to the side before returning. “I... I can’t remember the last place I put them.”

Her eyes shifted again, unfocused; the small movements of her head and shoulders tightened, as though admitting this felt like exposing something she usually kept hidden.

There was no point in trying to reassure her with optimism, the only thing I could offer was my help. So I told her that, if nothing else, I would be there with her—trying to find them.

She didn’t respond, her eye fixed on a spot somewhere beyond me lost in thought. After a couple of seconds, she moved toward the street corner where a few red and green taxis were waiting. Those fixed-route ones barely showed up on this boulevard anymore but I knew they passed near our school, so I assumed that’s where she meant to go.

I got in after her, and we took the first two seats beside the driver. It wasn’t long before he pulled away and started the route. The taxi stayed mostly empty, though he picked up a few passengers along the way.

Despite the empty vacuum around us, I felt her warmth close to my right arm, brushing against me occasionally, ever so slightly. She leaned against the window with her gaze fixed outside; all I could see was her straight, parted hair covering her face, with brief glimpses of her cheek appearing whenever the slight breeze lifted a few strands away.

“Thank you,” I heard her say, despite not looking at me.

I felt that there wasn’t anything else that needed to be said—only that I should go and help her find her glasses.

Now with a clear goal, I felt myself relax against the worn-out leather of the seat, little bits of yellow foam poking out from the sides. The rays coming through the window and the light touch of my arm against her shoulder were a constant source of warmth.

Suddenly, that warmth was overtaken by a heat rising from inside my left pocket, which felt much lighter than before. I slipped my hand into my pocket and felt different pieces of metal and some plastic inside. They were warm, as if they had been left under the sun for hours, yet they didn’t burn me. Instead, the heat sat comfortably against my skin.

I pulled them out carefully, unsure what these pieces were or how many there might be, my fist now holding a small handful of objects. When I opened my hand, the remains of my old lock lay scattered across my palm—split into four uneven pieces. Only the square body of the lock was still somewhat intact.

From a cursory glance, it didn’t look as though it had been forced open; instead, it seemed like a structural failure, the pieces having come apart from within.

I thought about the fate of this lock and its current state; it felt as though it wanted to let everyone know that its purpose was done. It no longer needed to remain whole, now that its lifespan had been spent protecting what it had been assigned to safeguard.

It had kept others out until it was time to access what it protected. Now, it wasn’t concerned with explaining how it had ended up here—only with letting me know it was no longer needed. Maybe this warmth on my hand was its way of saying so—the only way it could.

The metal I had once felt deep inside me no longer sent shivers through my skin; its lingering warmth reassured me, suggesting there was nothing left that needed locking.

I put the remaining pieces back into my pocket, their warmth now gone. I focused again on the light brush of my shoulder against the person beside me.

Her hair had begun to stir with the wind slipping in through the narrow opening of the window; the bus was now full and picking up speed. The air inside had grown warm, but the breeze kept sweeping in—cold against our skin.

She tried to pull the window down, but the metal only wiggled—fixed in place, the small lever of the window lock unwavering. I reached out with my right hand, pulled the lever, and closed the window, preventing the air from rustling her hair any further.

She turned around and saw herself reflected in my pupils—maybe even noticing the state of her formerly straight-laced hair now thrown into a whirlpool—so she lifted her hands to the sides of her head, trying to bring it back into order as best as she could. After a moment, as if defeated by the stubborn strands, she gave up and sat upright, showing me her profile. Her fingers drifted to the top of her left ear in the reflex of adjusting glasses that weren’t there anymore, and when she realized it, her hand dropped to her lap, leaving a faint tint of pink on her ear.

In every little detail she showed me, I began to notice the winding aspects of her movements—as if she had lost the tension that once held her upright and steady—leaving behind a young girl with a wandering eye looking ahead.

“You’re welcome,” I said to her.