I dreamed I was still adjusting claims

I was in a long, low building with windows that looked out onto a field of old car parts. Each claim file was a real thing—a glove, a coffee mug, a child’s drawing—stacked neatly but somehow breathing. I kept finding one I’d missed: a photo of a woman smiling at a kitchen table, the date scratched out. When I held it, I felt her grief like a weight in my hands. I woke up with my fingers curled around nothing, and for a moment, I thought I still had the file. The quiet after is what haunts me—not the case, not the loss, but how easily I could have stayed there.