Autosaved Draft

After the closing music ended, I went back to the reference room for a notebook I had left behind.

Half the corridor lights were already off. Rain moved down the windows in thin lines. I put the notebook into my bag and was about to leave when the copier at the back of the room started up.

No one was there.

It fed out a sheet of paper slowly, as if it had been waiting for the room to empty.

I thought it was a malfunction. In the output tray were three white pages. Only one short sentence had been printed on the first.

“Sorry about earlier.”

I recognized it.

That afternoon, I had typed those words into a reply to a friend. Then I deleted them, typed them again, and finally closed the message without sending anything.

The second page said:

“I said I was fine, but I wasn’t.”

I knew that one too. It was the sentence I had almost said on the phone the night before, before swallowing it and laughing instead.

The small screen on the copier no longer showed the usual number of copies. It displayed a different message.

“Printing autosaved replies.”

I stood there holding the pages.

The third sheet was still blank. But one corner of it was warm.

After a while, letters began to appear.

“I’ll call when I get home.”

It was the message I had just been thinking of sending. I had not even taken out my phone yet.

Then the copier went silent.

I put the three pages in my bag and left the room. Outside, the rain had softened.

On the way to the station, my phone vibrated.

It was from my friend.

“I had one autosaved too.”

Below it, there was a long blank space, still marked as sending.