The Drain Cleaner

"The Drain Cleaner"

The stench always hit him first. No matter how many times he had gone down into the city's bowels, the reek always crept up his nose like an old memory that refused to fade. Alfredo pulled his mask tighter on his face, though by now it only served to trap sweat against his skin. The smell always won.

"Still here, huh?" a coworker had said that morning as they were suited up in boots and rubber gear. Alfredo just nodded. He didn't speak much. Words had become a luxury. Thoughts, on the other hand, he hoarded - like voices whispering to him at night.

It had been eight years since he had asked for that money. Eight years since he had looked his friends, his mother, his older brother in the eyes and said: "I need it for the Master's. Environmental Engineering. A real opportunity."

He had lied.

It hadn't been planned. There was no malice, only cowardice. The day the money landed in his account; Alfredo stared at the digits like they were an escape hatch. Then he clicked "Book Now" on a travel site, choosing the most expensive, farthest, most pointless vacation he could find.

Thailand. Beaches, cocktails, laughter. A getaway. "I deserve this," he had told himself. "Just once. Then I'll fix it."

But there was nothing to fix, because when he came back, nothing was left. Only the truth - which, like all fragile lies, had revealed itself.

His mother had stopped talking to him after a three-minute phone call. His brother didn't even insult him. He simply closed the door in his face when he showed up with a crumpled envelope full of poorly written apologies. His real friends had answered with silence - the kind that stings worse than rage.

And so, Alfredo decided: he would pay back every single cent.

The job came by accident. Municipal sewer cleaning. Temporary contract, then renewed. Then again. He volunteered for the worst shifts. No one wanted them. He did. There were nights when the darkness under the city was so absolute, it felt like mercy. Down there, no one judged him. Rats were indifferent. The black water didn't ask questions.

He told himself this was redemption. He told himself it was penance. He told himself lies, still.

Each morning, as he trudged out of the tunnels, he asked the same question: "Would they be proud now?" But he never got an answer. Shame had a voice once and now it was just a constant hum in his head, quieter than grief but deeper than guilt.

For years, that was his life: brutal shifts, discount store meals, and cold beds in rooms always too small. But each month, religiously, he sent money, small amounts at first, then more. No one replied, but he kept going.

He even made spreadsheet-names, amounts loaned, and each cent repaid with interest. He stared at that spreadsheet often, not for pride but for proof: proof that he had at least done something right.

When he closed the last row three years ago, he cried not from relief, but from despair. Nothing had changed. "I don’t owe anything to anyone…" he'd write in letters he never sent. "… but no one wants me either."

Forgiveness was a strange word. He held it in his mouth like a bitter taste. He searched for it everywhere: in whispered prayers among the hum of pumps, in confessions scribbled on greasy napkins, and in the silence that always answered him back.

He'd tried more than once to end it all: once with drugs, another time with gas-but the detector alarm went off. Once with a rope, but the beam gave out. Each failure was a double blow: life refused to leave, and death rejected him. He hated that even this he couldn't do right.

So, he kept living and working as if it were the only atonement allowed. That morning, as he climbed down yet another manhole, he thought of his mother, her sauce, her quiet sighs after work, the way she'd always believed in him. He had repaid her in full, even a little extra, but there was never a thank you, never an "I forgive you" just silence.

Alfredo was 41, but he felt stuck at 33, the year of the lie. Everything since then has felt like living underwater: muffled, slow, and directionless. One day, deep in the sticky hush of the sewer network, he found a kitten: tiny, shivering, filthy to the bone. Alfredo scooped him up and tucked him into his jacket. He named him Shadow, took him home, washed him, and fed him.

Shadow saved his life for a while. Every night, Alfredo talked to him. He shared his thoughts, memories, and regrets. Shadow listened-or at least seemed to. And for a year, Alfredo stopped thinking about dying.

But cats age too, and one day, Shadow collapsed on the carpet and never got back up. The void came back, deeper than before.

That night, Alfredo left the house. It was winter. He wore his work suit, as if he could no longer be anything else. He climbed the railway bridge. The wind slapped him like a reminder that he was still alive. He looked down. The tracks stretched straight like fate. The train was due at 12:12 AM. He knew the schedule by heart. His hands trembled. Not from fear, but from resignation. "This is the one thing I can do right," he thought. At 12:10, he got a message from an unknown number. One sentence: "I don't know if I'll ever forgive you, but thank you for not giving up." He fell to his knees on the concrete. Cried. Screamed. Didn't reply to the message. Couldn't. But he climbed down from the bridge. He had survived again because someone-at least one person-had broken the silence. The next day, he went back to work, descending into the sewer with a slightly different breath. Not lighter, just less hopeless. Months passed. Now and then, he received a postcard. No name. Just short phrases: "I used the money to go back to school." "I gave it to my son to open his shop." "You did your duty. But I won’t forget." Every word was a blow to the heart, but also a thread that kept him hanging on. One day, after a brutal shift, Alfredo found an envelope on his door. Inside was a photo-him as a child in his mother's arms. On the back, in shaky handwriting: "You were good. Be good again." That night, Alfredo didn't sleep. He wrote, for hours, a letter he never sent. But he knew real forgiveness would never come because the one who had to forgive himself. And he couldn't. He had failed. Not at work, not with money, but with trust. And once trust is gone, it's like clean water in the sewer: it disperses, it gets dirty, and it never returns the same.

Another year passed.

Alfredo had become a fixture among his coworkers. They called him "The Quiet One." But he was also the most reliable-the one who never said no.

Each night, he lay on his mattress, eyes open to the dark, replaying everything-not just the lie, but every kindness he rejected, every phone call he didn't return, every chance he had to make it right but didn't take.

He often asked himself if suffering was enough. Could pain repay pain? Could filth purify betrayal? Or was this all just ego-trying to prove he was still worthy of being seen?

One bitter, rainy November evening, Alfredo came home, wrote one last letter, put on his best suit-not the uniform-and walked out.

He returned to the bridge.

The letter was on the table.

"To whoever reads this: I've paid my debts. But it's not enough. I lived in filth to purify myself, but there's no redemption for betrayal. If someone has forgiven me, thank you. If someone still hates me, I understand. I never forgave myself. I never will. Don't ask if you could have saved me. I was already gone long ago. - Alfredo."

That night, the train passed at 12:12. The driver said he saw nothing. But the next morning, on the track, there was a neatly placed pair of shoes and a small bag with a cat photo and a stack of postcards.

No one ever saw Alfredo again.

But for years afterward, every month, an anonymous donation kept arriving at a foundation for psychological support for young people in crisis.

The sender?

"Shadow."