The bell on the door rang at 2:17 a.m. Frank looked up from the magazine. A man walked in. He smelled like whiskey and rain.

"I need a pack of Marlboro," the man said.

Frank took them from behind the counter. He put them on the counter. The man put a five-dollar bill on the counter. Frank counted the change. He put the change on the counter. The man took the cigarettes and the change and walked out. The bell rang again.

Frank went back to the magazine. It was a car magazine from 2001. He read the same article twice. He put the magazine down. He looked at the clock. 2:19 a.m.

The fluorescent light above the counter buzzed. It always buzzed. Frank had asked the owner about it. The owner said it would be fixed. The owner said that three weeks ago. The light still buzzed.

Frank's father died three years ago. The official report said carbon monoxide poisoning. A space heater in a warehouse in New Jersey. The fire marshal wrote it down on a form. Frank signed the form. He did not go to the funeral. He sent a check for two hundred dollars to the funeral home. The check was returned. He sent another one. This one went through.

Nobody asked him about it. His mother had died when he was twelve. His father raised him alone after that. Frank did not think about it much. He thought about it sometimes. Then he did not think about it.

The clock said 2:45 a.m. Frank opened a bag of chips. He ate them slowly. The chips were salt and vinegar. He did not like the flavor. He ate them anyway.

At 6:00 a.m., he locked the store and walked to the warehouse. The warehouse was on the South Side, near the train tracks. It was a long building with a corrugated metal roof. Inside, there were shelves and boxes and pallets. Frank stacked boxes on pallets. He did this for eight hours.

The warehouse owner's name was Sal. Sal was fifty. He had a bad knee and a loud laugh. He laughed at things that were not funny. Frank did not laugh. Sal did not mind.

At lunchtime, Sal sat on a pallet and ate a sandwich. "You ever think about getting a real job?" Sal asked.

Frank shook his head.

"Women don't like guys who work nights," Sal said. "I'm telling you. I know."

Frank ate his sandwich. It was a peanut butter sandwich. He had made it the night before. The bread was slightly stale. He ate it anyway.

At 2:00 a.m., he was back behind the counter. The fluorescent light buzzed. A woman walked in. She was maybe forty. She had dark hair and a blue coat.

"Hi, Frank," she said.

"Hi," Frank said.

"I need some tape," she said. "For moving boxes. Do you have any?"

Frank went to the back. He came back with a roll of packing tape. He put it on the counter. The woman put a two-dollar bill on the counter.

"You look tired," she said.

"I'm fine," Frank said.

"You work too much," she said. "You should get some rest."

"I do rest," Frank said.

"Sure," she said. She took the tape and walked out. The bell rang.

Her name was Catherine. She lived in the apartment next door. She was forty. She had a son who lived in Detroit. She did not talk about him much. She came to the store sometimes. She borrowed things. Tape. Batteries. A light bulb. She always paid him back. Sometimes she paid him back late.

The next night, Frank went to the warehouse early. Sal needed him to clean out the basement. It had been locked for months. Sal had lost the key. He said Frank could pick the lock. Frank had never picked a lock in his life.

He found a screwdriver in his truck. He pried at the door. The paint cracked. The wood splintered. After ten minutes, the door opened.

The basement was dark. Frank turned on the light switch. Nothing happened. He went down the stairs with his flashlight.

The basement was full of old things. Broken shelves. Rusty tools. Boxes with no labels. Frank walked through the narrow space between the shelves. The air was cold and damp. His shoes made a wet sound on the concrete.

At the back of the basement, he found a cardboard box. It was on a low shelf, half hidden behind a stack of broken chairs. The box was open. Inside were plant specimens. Dried leaves and stems pressed between sheets of newspaper. They were moldy. Some of them had black spots.

Frank picked one up. It crumbled in his fingers. He put it down.

Under the specimens, he found a notebook. It was a black notebook, the kind you buy at a drugstore. The cover was torn. Frank opened it.

The pages were filled with handwriting. His father's handwriting. Frank had seen it before on bills and letters. He could not read most of it. The words were small and cramped. Some pages had diagrams. Lines and circles and labels in a language Frank did not know.

He flipped through the pages. Hundreds of them. He stopped at one page. It had a drawing of a plant. The label said something about a vine. Frank did not know what a vine was. He turned the page. More handwriting. More diagrams.

He heard a sound behind him. He turned around. The basement was empty. The flashlight beam shook in his hand.

He closed the notebook. He put it back in the box. He covered the box with the broken chairs. He walked back up the stairs. He closed the door behind him. The paint was cracked. The wood was splintered. He left it like that.

At home, he sat at the kitchen table. The apartment was small. One bedroom. One bathroom. A kitchen that was really just a corner with a stove. He sat at the table and drank a glass of water. The water was warm. He drank it anyway.

The phone rang. He looked at it. It rang again. He picked it up.

"Frank?" It was Catherine. "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner sometime. I make a good pot roast."

Frank looked at the wall. The wall was beige. There was a crack in the paint near the ceiling. He had noticed it months ago. He had not fixed it.

"No," he said.

"Oh," Catherine said. "Maybe another time."

"Maybe," Frank said.

He hung up the phone. He sat at the table. The apartment was quiet. He could hear the refrigerator running. It made a humming sound. He listened to it for a while. Then he got up and went to bed.

The next night, he was behind the counter again. The fluorescent light buzzed. A man walked in. He smelled like rain.

"I need a pack of Marlboro," the man said.

Frank took them from behind the counter. He put them on the counter. The man put a five-dollar bill on the counter. Frank counted the change. He put the change on the counter. The man took the cigarettes and the change and walked out. The bell rang.

Frank went back to the magazine. It was still the same car magazine from 2001. He read the same article. He had memorized it by now. He did not put the magazine down. He kept reading.

The clock said 3:02 a.m. Outside, the street was empty. A car passed. Its headlights swept across the store. They lit up the shelves for a moment. Then they were gone.

The fluorescent light buzzed. Frank looked at it. It flickered. Then it stopped flickering. It buzzed again.

Frank looked at the door. The bell did not ring. No one came in. He looked back at the magazine. He turned the page. The article ended. There was nothing after it.

He put the magazine down. He looked at the clock. 3:05 a.m. He had four hours and fifty-five minutes left.

He opened another bag of chips. Salt and vinegar. He ate them slowly.

Outside, the wind blew. It blew against the glass door of the store. The door did not move. It was locked. It would stay locked until morning.

Frank ate the chips. He wiped his fingers on his pants. He looked at the fluorescent light. It buzzed.

The corridor behind the counter was narrow. It led to the back room, where the coolers and the extra stock were kept. The corridor had a linoleum floor. It was gray and cracked in places. The walls were painted a color that was not quite white and not quite yellow. The fluorescent light at the end of the corridor buzzed too. It buzzed in a different key from the one above the counter. If you stood very still and listened, you could hear both of them at the same time. Two lights. Two buzzes. They went on all night.

Frank had never walked down that corridor after midnight. He did not need to. Everything he needed was behind the counter.

He looked at the corridor. It was dark at the end. The light was on, but the darkness was there too, behind the light, in the room where the coolers hummed.

He looked back at the magazine. He picked it up. He put it down. He looked at the clock. 3:12 a.m.

The bell did not ring.

Frank took a sip of water. It was still warm. He set the glass down on the counter. The glass left a ring on the laminate. A small circle of moisture. He watched it for a moment. Then he looked away.

The fluorescent light buzzed. The corridor stayed dark. The store stayed locked. The night stayed long.

Frank sat behind the counter. He did nothing. He would do nothing for four hours and forty-eight minutes. Then the sun would come up. Then Catherine would walk her dog past the store. Then Sal would call and ask him to come in early. Then he would stack boxes on pallets for eight hours. Then he would come home. Then he would sleep. Then he would come back.

The fluorescent light buzzed.

Frank looked at it. He did not think about anything. He did not need to.

--- OTMES v2.0 Objective Tallying System --- Work: The Corridor (V-04) Style: Dirty Realism TI=82.0 | θ=180° | M3=5.0|M1=7.0 | N1=0.30 | K1=0.55 | I=0.85 | R=0.0 T1_Despairing | Zero_Redemption | Silent_Daily_Life | Absent_Awakening