For a Moment

When I was much younger I worked at the Arby’s in my hometown and I can remember closing at night when everything was shutting down, the highway empty, the whole main stretch deserted and quiet—peaceful. As the silence descended I would be in the lobby with the broom in hand sweeping the crumbs from under the tables and across the tile floor. After filling the dust pan with all the little piles of crumbs I would then drag in the bucket with the mop and start moving back and forth across the lobby soaking the tile and making it glimmer beneath the fluorescent light. While I worked on the floor I would sometimes pause and look out the big windows at the front of the lobby, look at the stretch of highway empty except for a single car that passed maybe every ten minutes, at the fields and trees sinking into calm night beyond that, everything seeming to be engulfed—and for a moment I would feel something inside me contract. I would feel overcome by the presence of something for that moment then return to cleaning the floor . . .