Fourteen Bags, Three Flights, One Complaint (From My Arms)

My neighbor knocked around ten in the morning with that specific look people have when they've just arrived from a large grocery run and immediately regretted their optimism. Fourteen bags, I counted on the second trip, from the lobby to the third floor. I said yes before she finished asking, which is either a personality trait or a reflex I haven't fully examined. Probably both.

The stairwell in this building has no elevator and a landing window that lets in a very flat, very honest September light. By the third trip, my forearms had issued a formal notice. By the fourth I was moving on principle alone.

The second trip. Or the fourth. Honestly lost count.

There is something clarifying about a favor that is purely physical, no ambiguity, no nuance, just weight and stairs and the knowledge that at some point it ends.

Last trip. Hands: retired.

I set the last bags down, straightened up, and stood there for a second with my hands on my lower back like a person twice my age. My neighbor laughed. I laughed. She offered tea and I said next time, genuinely meaning it. Back in my own apartment by eleven, arms quietly vibrating, the rest of the morning still ahead. The weaving class is Thursday. Gerald has a new leaf going. The prints are still leaning against the kitchen wall. Everything in its place, nothing asking anything of me for another hour. That felt like enough.