Keys
Flash Fiction
It must have been the glint of light reflecting from the faux-silver keyring that caught his attention. He’d been strolling up Halsted absentmindedly, not noticing the flags in the window turn from DePaul Blue Demons to rainbows of various configurations. He hadn’t noticed the keys at first, proceeding a few paces before doubling back to lift them from the ground between index finger and thumb.
As he held them aloft, bits of detritus fell from them and reunited with their home on the ground. The keys circling the ring were themselves unremarkable, emblazoned with the logo of a big box hardware store. The same keys open millions of doors in thousands of cities. A needle in a global haystack that would be a mathematical impossibility to solve.
He kept walking, studying the ridges and indentations between their teeth as though searching for a familiar face in a sea of people. Hadn’t these keys opened the tool shed behind his parents’ house when they lived on Orchard? Or the padlock on the storage unit he’d moved it into after they passed away? Hadn’t these keys opened the knob lock on the first apartment he’d shared with Lisa and Jack before he knew he was gay?
The words on the small plastic keychain, the name of a car dealership in a collar county, were almost too faded to make out. If only a car key hung beside the others, he’d be able…
