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At the returns depot, every failed journey has a barcode and a reason. NO SUCH NUMBER. MOVED, LEFT NO ADDRESS. REFUSED AT DOOR. We place them in metal cages by the loading bay, where rain writes its thin grey address across the roller shutters. Near dawn, I scan a parcel no larger than a lunchbox. Its label has gone soft at the corners. The postcode is impossible. The road name has run into itself. But the handwriting is mine: the swollen capitals I made at nine, when every envelope looked important once it had a stamp. TO THE PERSON I WILL BE, it says. The scanner asks for a sender. It asks for a receiver. It asks whether the address can be corrected. Behind me, the cages fill with kettle bells, school shoes, a blue dress in a clear sleeve, all their small futures folded by machinery. I do not open the parcel. That would turn the question into evidence. Instead I print a new label. In the receiver field I type my name. In the address field, I leave a space wide enough for a hand to enter. The printer hums. The label comes out blank except for the black bars at the bottom, their patient little fence. I press it over the old one and send the parcel back into the system.
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