Sorting

Editorial Note: this is set in The Chronicler ‘s Blackwater world, and was written in response to an idea set forth in a note about said world:

I was aiming for tragicomic and found it going more dark than I expected. Inevitable, perhaps. Fair warning.

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Ed was scrolling through a novel when the guards came with the locker bin. That’s what Ed called it, anyway; officially it was coded by day, subject number, locker number, and various other designations that Ed didn’t give a rip about. What he cared about were the contents.

The guards didn’t say anything as they dumped the contents out on Ed’s table. They found the process rather morbid. Ed chose to look at it like a fun little daily treasure hunt. He even had a particular process. First, he snapped on latex gloves (you never knew with these people). Then he cued up the music. He’d heard the subjects had music in their dreams of all kinds, from rock to synth to Vera Lynn. Ed preferred something that fit the circumstances. After a while, he’d found a track by some old group, something about rocks or whatever, and he went with that. And so as Mick Jagger sang in the background, unrecognized, that “you can’t always get what you want,” His prep done, Ed began rooting through the contents of that day’s locker bin.

“Huh,” he said aloud. “What’ve we got here.” The guards had left by then. Ed quite frequently talked to himself. A different man might’ve imagined he was talking with the prior owners of the objects. Ed didn’t think about it.

“Ooh, a packet of Shrimp Crisps™. Definitely saving those. Keep ‘em with the other three million bags I got.” He lofted the chip bag in the direction of the trash bin. It landed with a mildly satisfying whunk. “Two points. H’ray for me. Right, what else? Earbuds. Custom fit of course, so those are useless. Typical.” The earbuds quickly followed the chip bag. “Aw, dang, I missed. Oh well.”

He tossed out a pile of clothes on principle, the only one he had and the same one behind the gloves he’d put on; you didn’t know where people’d been. Underneath a sweater, however, there was a wallet with an attention-grabbing number of large bills. “Oh, someone was looking forward to somethin’,” Ed mused. He palmed the cash; technically this was against regs, but the management didn’t care enough to check. That was the whole point of scrubbing the lockers in the first place.

“Jeez,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “More Shrimp Crisps™. That’s three million and two. And, oh, hey, a coupon. Buy five bags and get the sixth free. I could die happy.”

He finished going through the remnants, setting aside a two more wallets and a nice bit of jewelry for a girl he hoped to meet someday if he ever decided to get around to dating sometime. What was left he swept off into a larger trash bin. His table was now clear, ready for the next locker bin. And the next. And the next. And the next.

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