Last days at work

My last day at work began with a cardboard box.

They put it down on the step beside me, careful not to crush the printed castle on my surface. That had been a big deal when they bought me—a fairy‑tale castle, turrets and flags, sitting above the word WELCOME in looping gold letters. It was meant to be a statement about the house and the people inside. Mostly it ended up saying “step here, wipe your feet, and try not to think too hard about what you’re leaving behind.”

The box had the same word printed on it in block capitals: WELCOME. There was a logo, a stylized doormat, a promise of non‑slip rubber backing. I could smell the newness of it through the cardboard, that faint chemical optimism. Inside, my replacement waited to be unrolled.

They stepped over me to get to it. That was their habit. Shoes, trainers, heels, bare feet on a hot day. The little one (who wasn’t so little anymore) used my left corner as a springboard when he forgot there were other ways to leave the house. The father put the box inside the hallway without opening it. He wiped his shoes on me automatically. Mud, the usual mixture of garden and street. I took it. That was the job.

I had been there since before the divorce, before the new girlfriend, before the boy started leaving the house with a bag he didn’t bother to unzip for his mother. I had seen all of it in fragments: flakes of dried mud, glitter from a school costume, a smear of blood from a cut knee, the grey dust that clung to legal envelopes. If it came across the threshold, I collected a part of it. That was what I had been bought to do. Keep the dirt out. Keep the inside clean. Take it on myself.

They liked to think of themselves as the family in a storybook. The mother used to joke that “all kingdoms begins at the door.” She said it on the day they brought me home, shaking me out in the driveway before laying me down with a little ceremonial pat. “This is where it starts,” she said. “Don’t bring your monsters in.” Everyone laughed. Then they started doing exactly that.

**

You learn a lot about people from their feet. The father walked like he expected the floor to move for him—heavy, heel first, entitled to each square of tile. He wiped his shoes on me without looking down. Sometimes he didn’t even wipe. The mother was lighter, careful, always checking whether there was something on her soles that might leave a trace. If there was, she apologized to no one in particular and scrubbed it off on my fibers. “Sorry,” she would say, as if I minded. I minded more when she stopped saying it.

The boy used to jump over me when he was small. At twelve he started standing on me to tie his laces, one foot grinding into the exact same spot until the print of his trainer wore a bald patch into my face. At fourteen he began to linger on me before going out at night, shifting his weight, rehearsing something in his head. The last year, he stepped on me as quickly as possible, like the ground was guilty by association.

I did what I was meant to do. I caught the dirt before it got in. Rainwater and road dust. The fine black grains from the father’s work boots. The pale sand from the mother’s running shoes when she started taking longer and longer routes that ended nowhere in particular. I trapped it all in my bristles so the floor inside could stay clean, so they could pretend the outside world didn’t stick to them. If I did it well, no one noticed. That was the measure of success.

**

The first time I thought about not doing my job properly was the night the mother left.

It was late. They had been arguing for hours. I could hear voices rising and falling through the crack under the door. When she finally came out, she was carrying a suitcase that bumped over my edge and scraped the concrete. Her shoes were wet. It had been raining earlier. There was mud on the soles, a dark, heavy kind that would have left marks on the hall tiles.

She hesitated on me. I felt the pause in the weight. Then she wiped her feet. Automatically, like always. Twist left, twist right. The mud loosened and lodged itself in my fibers. She looked back at the door once, briefly, and then she was gone.

I held the dirt for her. I stopped it at the threshold. The hallway stayed clean. In the morning, the father noticed the faint brown smear on my surface and kicked at it with the side of his shoe.

“Need a new one,” he said.

He was right. I was already worn before that night. After, the words on my back, all those promises about durability started to feel like a bad joke. But I stayed where they had put me. That was the duty. Take it. Hold it. Keep quiet.

When the box arrived, I knew what it meant. Mats don’t get warning notices. No one tells you your position is under review. They just step over you a few more times until one day you are lifted up and shaken out for the last time.

That morning, with the new WELCOME still folded inside its cardboard, I realized something that should have been obvious years ago. If I stopped doing my job, they would finally see what they had been tracking in.

**

The next morning the father left for work before sunrise. He wiped his shoes on me automatically. The new mat was still in its box behind the door. The mother stayed upstairs, or maybe she wasn’t there anymore. The boy tiptoed past, barefoot, carrying his sneakers. He used his knee to nudge the door open, slipped outside, and left without closing the door properly.

For ten minutes, wind moved through the gap. Bits of dust, a stray leaf, warm air touching my edges where the glue was coming loose. I didn’t stop any of it. It slid straight past me, into the hallway where light was beginning to show.

Later that day, the girlfriend arrived. She stepped on me with bare feet, toenails painted a color I didn’t recognize.

—Thought this was supposed to be replaced, she said.

—I’ll do it Sunday, the father said.

—You’ve been saying that for months, she said, and walked over me again on her way out.

That evening rain came down heavy. The air grew thick and sweet, smelling of wet dust and mango peels. Someone had dropped litter near the step, an empty juice carton slowly dissolving. The water carried its stain through the cracks in the concrete, a yellow path curling toward me. I let it find me. It touched my frayed corner, soaked in, darkening the edge.

Inside, the television played louder than usual. Everything I’d caught earlier in the day was still there, a thin layer of other people’s choices pressed into me. That was the record of my service: every piece of dirt that wasn’t allowed to enter.

Before, that felt like control. Now it just looked like evidence.

When the boy came home, it was nearly eleven. He stood facing the door, rain dripping off his jacket. Shoes heavy with mud. He hesitated. Then he stepped over me without wiping. Mud on the tile. I almost admired it.

**

By Sunday morning, the box had gathered a thin layer of dust. The father finally picked it up.

—Yeah, I’m doing it now, he said into his phone.

He put the box down on the step beside me. He cut through the tape with his keys. The new mat was thicker, darker, clean. WELCOME in bold letters. No castle. Just the word, centered, confident.

—Nice, he said, and dropped the empty box behind him.

He lifted me with one hand. I was lighter than he expected. Dirt fell from me in soft clumps. He shook me over the step. Years of other people’s footprints came loose in a dull cloud.

—You’ve done your time, he said.

He put me down on the pavement while he positioned the new mat. The fresh rubber backing made a faint sucking sound as it met the tiles. He wiped his shoes on it automatically.

—The bin, he said. Then hesitated. Maybe the storage room, he continued.

He carried me down the path. The storage room was at the back, a low door that stuck in damp weather. He checked it open. The air smelled of old cardboard and something metallic. Maybe rust. He laid me on top of a stack of flattened cartons.

—We’ll figure out what to do with you, he said, and shut the door.

It was darker there, but not completely. Thin lines of light came in around the edges. I could still hear the house, muffled. From here, I couldn’t see who came in or out. I didn’t know if they wiped their shoes, if the new mat kept the hallway clean. I imagined it did. That was its problem now.

For the first time in years, nothing pressed down on me. The dirt that fell through the cracks of the storage room roof landed on my surface and stayed there. No one minded.

If duty meant keeping everything spotless so they could never see what they were tracking into their own lives, then I had retired at the right time.

Outside, the door opened and closed. The new mat took the impact. Whatever people brought in that day, it caught. Or it didn’t. Either way, it wasn’t mine to manage.

I had always thought freedom would feel like movement. It turned out it felt more like this: stillness without demand. The same position, the same shape, but no longer the line everyone stepped on to keep their own conscience clean.

If they ever came in here looking for me, they might notice the thin layer of dust on my surface and wonder when it had settled. I hoped they did. It would be the first time they saw their dirt without making me hold it for them.