Narrator: Kenneth J. | Michigan, USA
I was the custodian at an elementary school. One room had a coat hanging on the lowest hook all summer. Purple, missing a button. Nobody claimed it.
In August I took it down for the donation box. The sleeve tightened around my wrist.
It was such a small thing that I almost laughed. Static, a loose thread, whatever. Then the empty coat became heavy. The bottom hung at the height of a child’s knees. A depression formed in the hood.
I set it down gently. I don’t know why gently. It stood upright for a second, then folded flat.
My daughter had a coat about that size. When I got home I asked my wife whether we’d put her old one in storage. She said yes and wanted to know why I was crying.
I couldn’t tell her. It hadn’t felt threatening. It had felt like picking up a child who expected to be carried, and realising halfway through that your arms were empty.
