till tape · station kiosk · c. last spring
a strip of thermal paper, folded twice into a thumb-sized rectangle. the ink has begun to lift: the totals are still legible, the date is half a date, the name of the shop has gone entirely. a coffee, a plain bun, a paper. the paper itself you do not remember reading.
you keep it because you have not emptied the pocket since. there was a reason to keep it briefly — the company would have wanted it back, or you meant to underline the cost of a thing — and the reason has gone the way of the ink. the receipt has outlived its errand.
it is, now, only a record of one early morning at a counter that was not yet awake, in which a person also not yet awake counted out a ten and was given coins and a slip and a bun and was, for an instant, content. you cannot bring back the morning, but the slip is light, and the pocket is roomy. it stays. see also the ticket stub, kept for similar reasons.
field-note · unfold it slowly: the creases want to keep their angles.
small coin · pencil stub · number · forget