The room lay open and bare, already empty of the time she had spent there. Emily sat back on her heels in the middle of the cool, polished wood floor, searching for a glimpse of the home the room had become to her in her last two years of university. All that met her gaze was a motley collection of cardboard boxes, salvaged from the local corner shop and now full of her own bits and pieces, carefully retained in memory of their finding, like seashells or a bag full of rounded pebbles, precious as the coinage of memory, paying the toll to recall again times that somehow slipped sideways out of view, pressed by present pinching immediacies.

Sighing, she rolled the last of her posters up and slipped a rubber-band over the tight cylinder, adding it to the pile of boxes before her. A sharp angry buzz of the doorbell announced the arrival of the removal men who would carry all traces of her life there away, over the ocean to her home. She laughed softly to herself, realizing she was indulging in wistful melancholy, imagining these same men, surely cogs in a giant machine which picked up and deposited thousands of peoples' lives all over the world, as making that journey themselves. And, when she opened the door, they did not seem like men that would venture beyond the city zone of orange light, trailing car lights, the constant blip, whirr and whoop of the sirens of the different emergency services, criss-crossing each others' paths in a weave of anxiety and response.

Two men stood in the doorway.

“Alright, pal”, the shorter greeted her in a high, nasal voice, flashing a smile, the black gap where a tooth should have been taking her by surprise, and she smiled uncertainly back.

“This it all?” he continued as she let them in.

She nodded, smiling, and they got to work, scooping the boxes up with an ease that surprised her, for they were both thin and scrawny, their arms stretching from the wide sleeves of their football jerseys like the raw branches of young trees.

The room cleared rapidly, until she was left with only a small rucksack and her shoulder-bag and coat heaped on the stripped bed. Outside, the cherry red removal van sprang to life with a comfortable put-put sound. Davy, the second removal man appeared at the door. His eyes, behind their glasses were solemn and rounded as he handed her her receipt. But as she signed, he suddenly came to life.

“Going back home then?” he remarked.

“Yes, I'm finished uni now”, she handed back the clipboard and his pen. “But you'll be travelling again soon,” he nodded at her, and gave a knowing wink.

She looked back at him, puzzled.

“Joining the company, I suppose,” he continued, making for the stairs as a horn honked impatiently from the street, “I thought so, the minute I saw the name. I'll bet that's the company I said to Madge – the wee wifey,” he added, misinterpreting her confused expression.

“And you are the spitting image of him – well, I've only seen the photograph in the brochure, of course, but it's plain as the nose on your face.”

Emily opened her mouth to speak, but even as she did, the horn squawked again, and Davy pitched down the steps, calling, “We'll see each other in September. Good luck at the company” he shouted up. She heard the outer door click firmly behind him, and, as she crossed to the window, saw the red van pull away into the morning traffic. The name emblazoned on its side read: Xpress Removals. No mention of a company.

Well, what was that about, she wondered, picking up her coat and bags and making for the hall. Nice if she did have the offer of a job waiting for her at home, she mused smiling. She had applied, in a rather half-hearted way, to the various corporations that had set up stalls in the university as graduation time drew near. For a month her flat had been full of forms as she and her flatmates struggled to provide glowing assessments of themselves in one hundred words or less, but this effort had not, so far, reaped any reward, and, secretly, she was relived that no bland organisation had decided that she had the qualities, that would make her an ideal addition to their nameless operations carried out, she imagined, in a rabbit warren of partitioned, matchbox spaces.

Obedient to her landlord's wishes she left the keys on the floor inside the door, and shut the door for the last time. Its final click drove the memory of Davy from her mind as she felt time roll slowly over like the slow tumbling of a lock, and the past swing slowly closed on her years of university with a quiet, firm thunk.

Standing on the curb under the shifting dapples of soft spring leaves she hailed a taxi to take her to the airport. As she settled back on the squeaking black seats she watched, in another fit of melancholy, the slow unwinding of familiar streets; the reversal of the journey she had made frequently over four years from the airport to the university quarter. I'll be coming back, she promised the tall, formidable buildings, their various statues bent double under the weight of door mantles, or poised at the corners, holding various symbols aloft. Frozen there above street level, they seemed aloof from the rapid passing of time, guaranteed to remain looking down over the city as it shifted and changed. She got the impression that they would not miss her, although it often seemed to her that she was one of few people who had looked up, noting their silent presence as she carried about her daily life.

As they swooped onto the flyway, and sailed over the road beneath, crammed with the morning's traffic into the city, she withdrew her gaze from the buildings outside, and noticed the taxi driver staring at her in the rear-view mirror, a peculiar expression on his face, an expression almost, of recognition. As she met his eyes they shifted away quickly, and she sat back, puzzled. The driver began to sing along to the radio, nonchalantly, but she eyed the back of his head suspiciously.

The journey was short, and soon the taxi pulled up in from of the departures door. The driver stepped out of the car as she pulled her bags out, but when she handed him a note, he brushed it away with a flapping gesture, smiling nervously.

“Pleasure, pleasure” he muttered. “Happy to help someone from the company.” He stopped, flashing a quick look at her under his eyebrows, “I didn't realise…” he began, and then stopped again, diving back suddenly into the taxi. It pulled away quickly, leaving Emily staring after it incredulously.