Shayan Afzal

The man in the red hallway had no name, only a queue number that pulsed on the panel above his head: 1187.

He’d been waiting for so long that the floor had softened beneath his shoes, as though time had melted it. Around him, others sat quietly on chairs that were slightly too small, hands folded, lips tight, glancing occasionally at the rotating ceiling fan that did not move air, only suggestion.

Somewhere past the frosted glass doors at the far end of the corridor, someone screamed—not in pain, but in reversal. The sound didn’t echo. It folded back into itself and became a whisper none could hear.

The man stood. His number had not been called, but he felt something tugging—his right ear itched in Morse code. He walked to the vending machine and inserted a coin shaped like an apology. The machine blinked and dispensed a single white glove.

When he put it on, his fingers disappeared. He reached into his coat for a pen, but found a small bundle of feathers wrapped in wax paper. A note was tucked inside: “Don’t sign anything.”

He walked past the others, past the receptionist whose mouth was a perfect triangle, into the door that should not have opened.

Inside was a library. But instead of books, there were jars. In each: a cloud, still swirling. Labeled not with dates, but with regrets. Didn’t speak, Left early, Waited too long.

The man removed the glove and held it over one jar labeled Her letter unopened. Smoke slithered into the fabric, and the glove went black. He placed it in his pocket and sat down on the floor.

Across from him, a child entered, dragging a toy telephone. “Are you the alphabet?” she asked.

“No,” the man replied, “I’m the space between the letters.”

The child nodded as if this made perfect sense. She dialed a number on the plastic phone and handed it to him.

A voice answered: “We no longer accept silence as currency. Do you wish to trade your waiting for a new alphabet?”

He almost said yes. But he’d already forgotten the shape of the word.

And so the hallway swallowed him whole, chair and all.

The number blinked once more: 1188.