The glove compartment

Bolted into the dash's right flank, low enough to require a bend at the waist, it keeps its contents in the dark for years at a stretch. Inside: the owner's manual, unread past page four; a single glove, orphaned, for which the compartment is named but rarely used; expired proof of insurance folded into quarters; a tire gauge nobody trusts. The latch clicks shut with the satisfaction of a small approval, and the hinge sags a little more with each decade, until the door hangs open at red lights like a mouth mid-sentence. Some owners keep it tidy, napkins squared, manual filed spine out. Most do not. Most let it become a sediment layer, each object a stratum dating some prior version of the trip taken, the errand run, the person who once needed a pen and left it there for a future self who would need it more. Open enough of them, four hundred, say, and order stops being the expectation. What four hundred compartments do not prepare a person for is the one holding nothing but a child's drawing of the car itself, folded small, glove compartment included. Someone had drawn the box that would one day hold the drawing. It was closed again, gently, and the note taken has not been read since.

Marion Vale