Someone Else's Shift

Written By Anna Kung from Phillips Academy-Andover, Massachusetts, USA

Though I don’t have a driver’s license, I borrowed Marcy’s Prius to drive to my second interview for a job I wasn’t sure I even wanted. She said it was fine—“You’re a great driver, just not, like, legally.” I told her I’d be careful.

I was. Until I wasn’t.

It happened barely two blocks from my apartment. A red Buick stopped short in front of me, and I tapped its bumper. A soft crunch. Not dramatic, but enough to worry me.

With wobbly legs, I stumbled out of the car. The other driver followed suit. He was older, tall but slouched, like someone bent beneath years of invisible burdens. He eyed the scrape.

“I’m so sorry,” I blurted out. “It’s minor. I can pay for it. Just—please don’t call the police.”

He looked at me then down at the bumper. “It doesn’t look like there’s any damage,” he said, voice low and measured. “Could’ve already been there, if I’m honest.” Then he added, “You don’t have a license, do you?”

“And it’s not even my car.”

He let out a long sigh, not of anger but rather exhaustion. “I should report this.”

“I’ll pay out of pocket. Seriously. Just don’t. Please.”

He studied me. “I don’t want money. But I do need a favor. This will sound strange, but...” He looked up at the sky. “I need someone to cover my shift. Just one. Today.”

I blinked. “You… want me to work for you?”

He nodded. “Short-staffed. I promised the manager I’d be there. But I’ve got to go somewhere else, and there’s no time to explain. You look like someone who can follow instructions.”

“This is absurd.”

He shrugged. “So is driving without a license. I won’t report the accident if you do this. One shift.”

I looked at the red Buick, then at the Prius, then at everything that could fall apart with a single phone call.

I nodded. “Fine.” I walked to the red Buick and opened the door. It felt heavier, somehow, than most car doors. As I slid into the driver’s seat, the world tilted.

When I blinked my eyes open, I stood behind a counter, in a small, cozy diner bustling with morning rush. The smell of coffee and frying bacon filled the air. The name tag on my shirt said “Michael.”

A little girl came in, shy and smiling, and I felt she must be someone Michael cared about deeply. A woman sat alone, sipping coffee and staring out the window, and I sensed a story of regret there.

The bell above the diner door never stopped ringing. Orders flew at me faster than I could catch them, but my hands knew exactly what to do. Refill the coffee. Clear the plates. Smile like it mattered. I watched myself in the mirrored panel behind the milkshake machine–watched Michael. How he carried himself. The limp I hadn’t noticed before. The way he said “hon” without it sounding condescending.

The girl–his daughter? niece? She sat quietly in the corner booth, drawing cats in the margins of a placemat. She looked up periodically, as if to make sure I hadn’t disappeared.

Time stretched and folded like batter being mixed. Regulars came and went. One of them, a woman in a denim vest and a pink ribbon pinned to the collar, touched my arm as I poured her coffee.

“I heard about your mom,” she said softly. “She was a good woman.”

My throat tightened.

“She was,” I said. “Thank you.”

Another man leaned over the counter and added, “You took care of her right up to the end. There’s not a lot of folks like that anymore.”

I nodded, my throat too swollen to respond.

By the time the lunch rush thinned, my shirt clung to my back, and my feet ached. Yet something in me had steadied, like I had been taught a lesson worth an entire lifetime in just one afternoon… without words.

The manager gave me a wave from the back. “You’re good to go, Michael. Appreciate you showing up today.”

I folded the apron, worn thin by years of labor, and left it on the counter. The chime of the bell lingered in the air just like it knew something had changed when I stepped outside into a cold, pale afternoon.

The Prius was outside, and Michael, the real Michael, stood beside it, like he’d been there the whole time.

He looked different. Not happier, exactly. Just…unburdened.

“You took care of them,” he said.

“I think they were taking care of me,” I replied.

He chuckled low and tired. “I was supposed to be at the hospice. They said she wouldn’t last the morning. But I didn’t want to miss another shift. Couldn’t. I just couldn’t afford to. And she–” His voice caught. “She hated the thought of being a burden.”

“She wasn’t.”

“She was everything,” he whispered. “And I missed her last breath for a plate of scrambled eggs.”

We stood there for a while, silently. Then I handed him his keys.

“Sometimes we don’t get to make peace,” he said. “But someone else can help carry the silence for a little while.”

He turned, walked away–and everything wavered, like heat off asphalt.

I was back in the driver’s seat, the Prius rolling forward, slow, steady–and the red Buick was just ahead, braking.

But this time, I tapped the pedal faster.

No crunch. No impact. Just the quiet hum of tires on pavement.

I exhaled like I hadn’t taken a breath in hours.

The Buick, free of scratches or scrapes, turned the corner and vanished. Just another stranger, just another moment in passing.

But my hands gripped the wheels tighter, not from fear, but from something else. I drove the rest of the way without incident. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that for a few hours, I had lived a life that wasn’t mine.

And maybe, in some quiet way, I had returned with something I didn’t know I was missing.