The last key I ever handed back

Today, I found it in the drawer—old, dented, the plastic handle cracked. Not a prison key, not really. Just the one I kept from the gatehouse at Elmwood, the one I never turned in. I remember the day I did: the warden said, 'You’re done, Tariq,' and I handed it over like it was nothing. But I didn’t. I pocketed it. For years, I carried it. Now I don’t know why. Maybe just to prove I’d still been there. To feel the weight of it when the silence got too loud.