Incense and the Exit Sign¶
The city rewrote its history, but the bus depot still smells like the old incense—sweet rot, like crushed marigolds and wet concrete. I know because I’ve been here seven nights straight, logging intake forms under the flicker of a monitor that predates the web. My scrubs reek of it too. Nobody mentions it. That’s the rule.
The advantage I want is simple: to be the only one who knows the incense means something. That it’s not just mildew or the Chinese restaurant next door. The burned-out exit sign in the bubble mailer under my chair? That’s mine too. Found it in a supply closet labeled 1992—Do Not Open. The glass is ash-clouded, but if you spin it just right, the letters don’t say EXIT. They say Egress.
“Another late one,” says Marcus, the nightshift security guard, leaning into the alcove. His voice is lint-soft, the way he talks when he’s avoiding the thing we’re both avoiding. He eyes the mailer but doesn’t ask.
“You’re one to talk,” I say, flipping a page in my clipboard. The forms are all wrong. Blood types listed as sanguine or melancholy, like the intake nurse bled a humors manual. I circle a phlegmatic in red pen.
Marcus snorts. “Shift’s almost over. You should go home. Sleep.”
“I sleep,” I lie.
He doesn’t correct me. Doesn’t mention the shadows under my eyes or how I’ve been wearing the same ponytail for three days. We don’t talk about the incense or the way the depot’s bricks hum when it rains. We don’t talk about the other thing either. The reason nobody new lasts at this job.
A cough echoes down the corridor. Both of us turn.
The patient—guest, the forms say, though the ID tag calls him Unregistered Male, Late 40s—shuffles forward, clutching a paper bag. His scrubs are the wrong color, like they tried to dye them gray but got distracted.
“Here for the exam,” he says. His voice is a file cabinet drawer stuck halfway open.
Marcus steps back. “You know the drill. Wait by the vending machines.”
The man doesn’t move. “You’ve got the sign.”
I go still.
Marcus laughs, too loud. “What, that thing? It’s trash. Safety hazard.”
The man’s eyes flick to the mailer. “Egress.”
The word hangs. For a second, the hum in the bricks gets louder.
Marcus’s smile dies. “You’re not supposed to know that.”
The man sets his bag down. Inside: a roll of stamps, a cracked handheld game—Merlin the Wizard, 1987—and a jar of that same incense. Burned offering style.
“I’m here to collect,” he says.
Marcus takes another step back. His hand hovers near his belt, but he doesn’t touch the radio. That’s when I realize he’s afraid. Not of the man, but of what the man knows.
I stand. My knee knocks the mailer, and the sign inside clinks. “Collect what?”
The man doesn’t look at me. “The debt. It’s been paid.”
Marcus makes a noise like a deflating balloon. “You can’t just—”
“Check the ledger,” the man interrupts. He pronounces it ledger like it’s holy.
I do. Because that’s the other rule: when they say check the ledger, you do.
Page 43. Handwritten addendum in the margin, smudged but legible: All debts discharged. Effective immediately. Authority: Egress Protocol.
I look up. Marcus is shaking his head, but his eyes are wide.
The man picks up his bag. “Tell the others.”
As he walks away, the incense smell fades. Replaced by something sharper. Ozone-less, but clean.
Marcus clears his throat. “You didn’t see that.”
I don’t answer. I’m staring at the ledger. My fingers smell like ash.
He hesitates, then mutters, “Your father would’ve liked this.”
The line hits like a physical thing. My dad died two years ago, but the city’s obituaries called him a historical anomaly.
I swing at Marcus. Miss.
He catches my wrist, gentle. “Politeness,” he says, like it’s an apology.
Up the hall, the man stops. Turns.
“You’re welcome,” he calls.
The bricks stop humming.
Marcus lets go. “Better get that sign fixed.”
I sit back down. The mailer rustles.
It’s not an exit sign anymore.
It’s a receipt.