Conveyor Rhythm

The quiet dining table had grown entirely too still, so I let myself tumble into a customer's open laundry basket resting by the hall bench. A gentle car ride brought me straight into the neighborhood dry cleaner. Traversing the wide laminate counter on my own looked needlessly exhausting. Fortunately, a long brass zipper pull from an unzipped garment bag was dangling across an upturned acrylic clip box, slanting neatly toward an empty metal counter shelf. I tipped forward, letting gravity slide my smooth base down the brass teeth in one unhurried glide. At the bottom, I nestled right against the housing of an electric motorized garment conveyor. Its low, rhythmic motor hums steadily through the steel frame as hangers drift overhead, and from this calm perch, I can observe the swirling plastic bags without moving another inch.