The post office always smelled faintly of paper, dust, and ink, a mixture that clung to Leo's clothes long after he left for the evening.
The fluorescent lights hummed above, a sound so constant that most of the staff stopped hearing it years ago. Leo hadn't stopped. He heard the hum every day, every hour, like an insect trapped in the ceiling. His life, he often thought, was not so different from the letters he handled: sealed, stamped, and sent along without choice in the matter.
He clocked in at eight-thirty sharp, as he had for the last seven years, sliding his card across the terminal until the machine beeped a thin, unsympathetic tone. The small staffroom smelled of instant coffee and microwave dinners, though this early in the day only two people were present. Greg, the wiry clerk with a voice too loud for enclosed spaces, and Mrs. Denton, who had been working there longer than anyone remembered and whose moods swung like a metronome between dry sarcasm and silent brooding.
"Morning, Leo," Greg called, raising a Styrofoam cup in greeting. Coffee had left a stain on the cuff of his blue uniform shirt. "Ready for another day in paradise?"
Leo forced a polite smile. "Morning. Yeah. Same as always."
Greg chuckled at his own joke, which wasn't much of one, and returned to complaining about the vending machine, which he claimed was shortchanging him. Mrs. Denton didn't look up from her crossword. She hadn't greeted anyone in over a week, and Leo doubted she'd start with him.
The front counter awaited. Long beige laminate, covered in scuffs from decades of packages being dragged across its surface. Leo slid behind his register, logged into the system, and let his eyes wander briefly to the far end of the counter.
There she was.
Amy.
She was unpacking rolls of commemorative stamps from a crate, her hair falling over her shoulder in a curtain of chestnut strands. She wore the same uniform as the rest of them, the same boxy blue shirt and navy trousers, but on her it looked almost graceful. When she smiled at a customer, the drab little post office seemed briefly less gray.
Leo's stomach always tightened when he saw her. They had worked side by side for three years now. They ate lunch in the same break room, shared jokes about difficult customers, sometimes even left at the same time and walked halfway home together before their streets diverged. To her, it seemed natural, friendly. To him, it was everything.
"Next!" Leo called, as the line of customers shuffled forward.
The morning passed in the usual fashion—bills to be paid, parcels to be weighed, passports to be stamped. Some customers were polite, thanking him as if he had done them a personal favor; others were curt, sliding forms across the counter without eye contact. A middle-aged man with a red face argued about the price of express shipping, as though Leo had invented it personally to spite him.
"That's ridiculous," the man barked, stabbing at the laminated chart Leo kept behind the glass. "It says twenty-five there. Why are you telling me thirty-two?"
"That's the domestic rate," Leo explained softly. "Yours is international, to Canada. The rate is higher."
"Highway robbery," the man grumbled. "Bunch of crooks."
Leo endured the tirade with practiced patience, nodding occasionally. He had learned long ago that arguing only made things worse. When the man finally left, muttering curses under his breath, Leo exhaled slowly and turned to the next person in line, a kindly older woman sending a birthday card.
At ten, the mail carriers returned briefly to collect their routes. Among them was Raj, whose booming laugh filled the lobby whenever he came in, and who greeted Leo with a clap on the shoulder that nearly sent him into the counter. "My man, Leo! Another glorious day, eh? One day closer to the weekend!"
Leo smiled weakly. He had no plans for the weekend. He rarely did.
By noon, the line had thinned enough for Leo to sneak a glance toward Amy again. She was at her register, leaning forward slightly as she explained something to a young mother juggling a toddler on her hip. The child dropped a toy car onto the counter, and Amy picked it up, making it drive in small circles until the boy squealed with laughter. Leo's chest ached at the sight. She was kind, she was beautiful, and she was utterly unattainable.
"Break time," Greg announced loudly, stretching his arms. "Dibs on the last muffin in the machine."
Leo nodded and signed off his register. He took his lunch to the break room—a sandwich he had made the night before, wrapped in plastic wrap, already slightly soggy from the tomato inside. He sat at the corner table, unfolded a newspaper, and tried to focus on the headlines. Across the room, Amy entered, carrying a Tupperware container that smelled faintly of stir-fry. She smiled when she saw him.
"Hey, Leo."
His heart leapt. "Hi, Amy. How's your morning?"
"Oh, you know," she said, setting her food on the table opposite him. "Same circus, different clowns. Did you get the guy yelling about postage again?"
Leo chuckled. "Which one?"
She laughed, a bright sound that made Greg glance up from his phone and grin as though he had caused it.
They ate together in companionable silence for a few minutes, broken only by Mrs. Denton's sighs as she filled in her crossword with violent stabs of her pen. Amy began telling a story about her neighbor's cat getting stuck on a roof, and Leo listened intently, though he barely registered the details. He was too busy memorizing the cadence of her voice, the way her hands moved as she spoke.
When lunch ended, Leo returned to his register feeling both buoyed and hollow. He lived for those fleeting moments with Amy, yet they always left him aching for more.
The afternoon brought a rush of customers. Office workers mailing packages on their lunch break, a teenager sending a bulky envelope overseas, a man who insisted on paying his bill entirely in coins. Leo counted every cent without complaint, though his jaw ached from clenching it.
Near closing time, a woman approached with a stack of parcels so high she could barely see over them. Leo hurried around the counter to help her, though he nearly tripped on the edge of the mat. Amy noticed and stifled a laugh behind her hand. Leo felt his face burn.
"Thanks," the woman said breathlessly as he took half the stack.
"No problem," Leo muttered, setting them on the scale. His hands shook slightly as he typed in the information. He could still hear Amy's muffled giggle. He told himself it was affectionate, not mocking.
At five o'clock sharp, the doors were locked and the staff began the ritual of tidying the counters, balancing the registers, and emptying the trash. Greg made some off-color joke that earned him a scowl from Mrs. Denton and a weary chuckle from Raj. Amy hummed softly as she counted stamps. Leo lingered longer than necessary, just to be near her a little more.
When they finally left, the evening air was cool and smelled faintly of rain. Leo walked beside Amy down the cracked sidewalk, their uniforms rustling with each step.
"Got any plans tonight?" she asked.
Leo shook his head. "Not really. Probably just… read or something. You?"
"Dinner with a friend," she said vaguely, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. She smiled at him, warm and genuine. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah. Tomorrow."
They parted at the corner, her figure growing smaller as she turned down her street. Leo stood for a moment, watching until she disappeared. His chest felt tight, not unpleasantly, but with that persistent ache he had carried for years. He wanted to tell her everything—how much he admired her, how he thought of her every night before sleep—but the words stuck like stamps that wouldn't peel from the backing.
He walked home alone, the hum of the post office still ringing faintly in his ears.
He smelled like paper, dust, and ink.