The lost-and-found register

You don’t remember submitting it, but the handwriting feels familiar enough not to argue with. The page carries a faint smell of dust and sunlight, like places that have aged but are still cared for.

You read the entries slowly. There is no urgency. Lost-and-found counters respect patience.

Item #14

A moment, mid-afternoon.

Condition: intact.

Description: laughter that arrived without rehearsal.

You nod. That feels accurate. You remember how time behaved differently then—cooperative, almost generous. It didn’t rush. It didn’t withhold. It stayed long enough to be noticed.

Item #19

A person.

Last seen: beside you, neither ahead nor behind.

Remarks: presence was effortless.

You don’t linger here. Lingering suggests retrieval. This place isn’t meant for that. It’s meant for acknowledgment.

You turn the page.

Item #27

A version of you who planned nothing and still arrived everywhere on time.

Status: unclaimed.

You smile. You are fine now. Better, even. Life fits. Days behave. You no longer expect weekends to carry something extraordinary.

Still, you lightly underline the word unclaimed, as if the paper might feel it.

Item #31

An ordinary evening that became memorable without permission.

Weather: irrelevant.

Outcome: still functional.

That’s the strange part—how some memories don’t interfere. They don’t interrupt your day or slow your walk. They simply exist, like background music you don’t notice until it stops.

The register doesn’t argue with this.

Item #38

Silence that felt shared.

Not empty.

Not full.

Just accurate.

You pause here, because accuracy matters to you now. You have become someone who values what is precise more than what is exaggerated.

Somewhere behind you, a clerk clears their throat. You don’t turn around. You don’t need assistance. You know how this works.

The last page is thinner.

Item #42

Time, once spent.

Return policy: none.

Notes: left warmth behind.

You close the register gently. There is no stamp. No signature required. Some records exist only to confirm that something mattered, without the possibility of it returning back. 

You step outside. The light meets your face easily.

Not dramatically.

Not nostalgically.

Just… warmly.

You walk on, carrying nothing in your hands.  But you know what remains accounted for.