Taxi - Bill

I step out. The door thuds shut. The taxi pulls away, brake lights bleeding red into the night. And I stand there—holding a receipt for 28 minutes of my life—wondering why it feels like a ransom note.

The bill says thank you at the bottom. Thank you for riding. Thank you for paying. Thank you for moving through my city without touching it.

But we are all articles left behind. A glove. A phone charger. A half-finished sentence. A promise we forgot to keep. taxi bill

The machine exhales a ribbon of paper—thin, thermal, unfeeling. $24.50. 11.3 miles. 28 minutes. The taxi bill lands in my palm like a verdict.

The meter clicked. Every tick a small death of possibility. I step out

We pay to go somewhere else. But we never arrive free.

The answer, of course, is that it is.

I look at the fine print on the back: Not responsible for articles left behind.