The silence after the shift ends

I stood in the break room for a full minute after the last bell rang, just listening. The floor was empty, but the air still hummed with the echo of voices and footsteps. No one else was around—just the fridge buzzing and the faint smell of burnt coffee from the pot left on. I thought about how we never really leave the shop behind. It follows you home in the way your shoulders slump when you sit down. But today, for a second, it didn’t feel like a weight. Just quiet. Real quiet.