Last Shift Now

You walk out the door. The air smells different. Fresher. Scarier.

You find yourself doing the motions you’ve done a thousand times—restocking napkins, wiping down the counter, checking the back door is locked—but your hands are on autopilot. Your mind is elsewhere. Replaying the inside jokes, the meltdowns in the walk-in cooler, the regular who always ordered the same thing and asked how your day was. last shift

That was your last shift. Tomorrow, a new one begins. You walk out the door

There’s no big speech at the end. No slow-motion walk through the parking lot. Just the click of your locker for the last time. The turn of your name tag over in your palm. A final “see ya” that hangs in the air, because everyone knows you won’t. Scarier

The weirdest part? You spend so long looking forward to leaving. And then, in the last ten minutes, you’re not sure you want to.

You look around and realize: I’ll never stand here again.

But the clock doesn’t care about nostalgia. It ticks to the hour. You punch out. The machine beeps—the same beep as always, but this one is a period at the end of a long, messy, beautiful sentence.