Last Shift |link| -

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

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. last shift

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. You walk out the door

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. Scarier

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

There’s a unique kind of quiet that comes with a last shift.

That was your last shift. Tomorrow, a new one begins.