Lyrics
Subtitles ready...I found it... by accident... ...The laundromat wasn't abandoned... ...It was just... forgotten... The sign buzzed softly... One letter no longer worked... Nobody seemed to notice... Across the street... There was always the same convenience store... Bright... Clean... Always open... I only crossed over because I wanted something to drink... The refrigerator was full... I reached for a bottle... ...and someone else took the last one... I shrugged... Picked another... ...gone... I watched it disappear between one blink... and the next... No customer... No employee... Just... an empty space where it had been... Every shelf became like that... Whatever I decided to buy... That became the only thing they no longer had... Even things I could already see... I stopped asking questions... I just walked back... ...to the laundromat... The machines never stopped... Not one of them... Round and round... Round and round... Nobody loading them... Nobody waiting... Only the slow turning of glass doors... Like clocks... Trying to wash away... time itself... There were small tables beside the windows... Old laminated tops... Plastic chairs... Someone had left crossword puzzles... Half-finished... Coffee rings... A pair of reading glasses... Everything looked... Interrupted... As though people had stood up... For only a minute... ...and never returned... Sometimes... I heard another chair slide across the floor... Very gently... I would look... Nothing... A minute later... Another scrape... Closer... Always after I looked away... Never while I watched... The dryers were stranger... They hummed... Without spinning... Then... When they finally started... The clothes inside... Didn't belong together... A child's jacket... A business suit... A wedding dress... Military boots... Hospital blankets... As though every forgotten life... Eventually arrived here... Waiting... To become clean again... One evening... I left my backpack beside the table... Just for a moment... I crossed the street again... The convenience store had fresh sandwiches... At least... I thought it did... I reached for one... Blink... Empty shelf... Another... Gone... Chocolate... Gone... Water... Gone... Instant noodles... Gone... The cashier looked at me... Almost apologetically... "We sold the last one." Every time... Every single time... I walked back... Defeated... When I returned... My backpack... Was zipped closed... I never zip it... Inside... Someone had folded my laundry... Perfectly... I hadn't started washing anything... Not even once... From then on... I stopped bringing clean clothes... I started bringing dirty ones... They always came back folded... Warm... Smelling faintly... Like soap I couldn't recognize... The strange part... Wasn't that they were cleaned... It was that... They were repaired... Small holes... Gone... Missing buttons... Returned... A shirt I'd thrown away... Months earlier... Appeared... Folded... On the table beside me... I never thanked... Whoever did it... It felt... Safer that way... Sometimes... Late at night... The convenience store lights... Would all switch off... For exactly... Ten seconds... The laundromat never did... It stayed awake... Watching... Waiting... Working... As though... It had accepted... That nobody else... Would... Then... One night... I looked through the laundromat window... And saw... Someone sitting... At my usual table... Head lowered... Hands folded... Waiting... I hurried inside... The chair... Was empty... But... The seat... Was still warm... Now... Every Thursday... I visit... Not because I need clean clothes... But because... Something there... Seems disappointed... If I don't... ...and lately... Whenever I leave... The convenience store... Always has exactly one thing... Left on the shelf... Laundry detergent... ...as if... Something already knows... I'm coming back...