On his last day at the workshop, Mladen brought an empty box for his belongings. There was little: a mug, safety glasses, a photograph of his grown daughter from when she still wore braces. The work was moving to a larger facility, and he was retiring. He felt sad about the people he would no longer see every morning and pleased that he would stop rising before dawn. Neither feeling canceled the other until a crew arrived to film their farewell.
The reporter was pleasant. She asked how many years he had worked there and what he would miss most. He answered honestly, mentioning colleagues and morning coffee. Asked what he would do with himself now, he said he would first sleep as long as possible for several days. The cameraman laughed, but the reporter was unsatisfied. She asked him to say more about the emptiness. Mladen looked at his box. He did not know how to describe emptiness before even arriving home.
They filmed him walking through the door. Then they sent him back because someone had passed behind the camera. He repeated the exit, more slowly. The third time they asked him to pause and look back at the workshop, like a man leaving forever. There was enough truth in that sentence for him to comply. He looked at the tables, windows, and place where he had stood for years. He did not cry. He heard the reporter quietly ask whether it could be a little more emotional.
He set down the box. He said he did not know how to cry on time. His younger colleague laughed, more from nerves than amusement. The reporter explained that the story had to reach viewers. Mladen asked why his relief could not reach them. He did not hate his work. He was tired of it. He wanted both things to be allowed into the same sentence, without having to turn his departure into a misfortune somebody expected.
The workshop manager approached and asked him to help the crew finish. Mladen lifted the box and said he had already answered their questions. He did not demand deletion of the footage or declare himself the voice of every worker. He simply stopped entering the same doorway to emerge again with a better expression. His colleagues shook his hand. One offered to carry the box together, although it was light. That moment nearly made him cry, but the camera was pointing elsewhere.
The evening report retained his sentence about morning coffee. He watched at home in old sweatpants. His daughter asked whether it was difficult. He said yes, and that he also felt lighter. She did not have to choose which half of the answer to keep. She brought two cups, and for the first time that week he left the box unpacked and decided it could wait until morning.