galerija/zgodba-retirement-gift-for-a-colleague.jpg
Franc spent forty years behind the same counter and on his last Friday he wanted to leave at two in the afternoon without any fuss at all. We let him think that was going to happen.
The problem with a retirement present is that everything sensible has already been given to somebody else. A watch, a pen, a voucher for a garden centre. We wanted something he would actually keep, so eleven of us put money together and ordered a picture instead.
His forklift is on it, the old one with the cracked seat that he refused to replace because he said it had settled into the right shape. His counter is on it, with the stack of catalogues nobody else could navigate and the drawer of bearings that only he understood. His mug is on it, the brown one, which had his name written on the bottom in marker although nobody would have dared touch it anyway.
His chair has the worn armrest on the right side, because he always leaned that way when the phone rang.
On the side of the lorry are the names of everyone he trained, and there are seventeen of them. He put half the building through their first year and never once made anyone feel slow.
The number plate is his first day, not his last. We were firm about that.
There is a doughnut on the counter, because every Friday for four decades he brought doughnuts in and said, every single time, that this was definitely the last time.
The road out of the picture goes towards a vegetable garden and a small workshop, because that is where he actually is now, and he sends photographs of tomatoes to the group chat with no text attached.
He read the names first. Then he found his own chair. Then he had to go outside for a minute.