Let the Red Numbers Fall

Two-fifty-three. Aisle D, station fourteen. The board says two-eighty-seven. Mine says one-ninety-three. Nolan taps the red display with the back of his pen. "Grey held this for seven hours. You can do it once again." My right glove has split at the thumb. Shrink-wrap burns my wrist. Every case that reaches daylight adds another to the list. Pears. Soap. Rice. Cat litter. Blue crates scrape the rail. The board turns labor into weather: amber, red, or fail. Six behind. Nine behind. It counts the seconds when I breathe. No face beside the highest rate, just GREY on an LED. Let the red numbers fall. Let them blink above the line. I have carried sixty cases; they still call me six behind. Let the red numbers fall. Let the rollers count themselves. If the rate needs every breath I have, it can answer for itself. At three-eleven the scanner dies halfway through a crate of pears. Nolan throws the backup down. "Use Grey's. The record's theirs." The battery latch will not close. I peel black tape away. Mara — nights. Dev — mornings. Elsie — break relief, every day. Underneath, one warning: "Don't sign out at lunch. Pass the gun. Keep rate alive." Three sets of worn thumbprints beneath one worker ID. One badge. Three names. One number built from borrowed hands. Nolan sees me reading. Says, "Put it back and scan." Let the red numbers fall. One badge cannot make three. Mara, Dev, and Elsie made the ghost you sell to me. Let the red numbers fall. Let the rollers lose their song. No one ever made that target. Three were pushed to pass it on. I lay Grey's scanner on the rail, label side up. Station thirteen lays hers beside it. Then twelve. Then one. Twenty green lights turn to amber. Twenty rollers carry air. Nolan says, "Clock out if you stop." No one reaches for their card. At three-sixteen the board drops from two-eighty-seven to nine. No one moves to save it. Zero takes its time. Let the red numbers fall. Every scanner on the steel. Not one hero on the board now. Twenty workers standing still. Let the red numbers fall. Zero glowing over all. We don't know who keeps a shift tomorrow. Still, the red numbers fall. Mara. Dev. Elsie. The first truck waits behind the shutter. The board holds zero.