Ankit Kumar, India's National Honour
October 2026
Laundry Marker
Ms. Reyes gives me a bin bag, a clipboard,
and a fat black marker for the log.
The scissors are for the bag tape. Be done by four.
If you can't read a name, put a dash.
On the way I pass the office tray:
one umbrella, a name on masking tape round the handle.
The secretary says she's rung the house twice.
It's been there since half term.
The box lives under the stairs in the science block,
a fruit crate, PEARS stamped down one side,
deeper than it looks. Her rules:
anything with a name goes to the tray
and the office rings the house.
Anything without goes in the bag.
At the top of the log it says CHECKED BY.
I sign. S. Rennie,
the R kicking its leg out over the e,
the way it comes.
Whatever was lost last is on top,
so I start there.
Gloves, six, no two of them a pair.
A red scarf stiff with playground rain.
Three water bottles furred green at the threads.
A geometry set without the compass.
A lunchbox holding one raisin
and the sweet, shut smell of September.
I make the marks.
—
—
—
PATEL
—
The marker squeaks on the paper.
Near the bottom, everything is older.
A cardigan the colour of porridge.
One football boot, size four.
A library book swollen twice its width.
A plastic watch stopped at 12:17.
Then a navy jumper.
Same as all of ours.
I nearly bag it.
There is writing on the label,
faded to the colour of breath.
I hold it under the stairwell light.
S. RENNIE.
For a second I think
someone has put my jumper here as a joke.
Then I see the white paint
on the left cuff.
Year Seven.
Art room.
We were painting winter trees
with the ends of old toothbrushes.
I remember Mum scraping at that spot
with her thumbnail over the sink.
Three washes, she said.
It'll come out.
I don't remember losing the jumper.
I remember the boy who wore it.
He kept his blazer buttoned wrong.
He knew which vending-machine button
sometimes dropped two packets.
He ran for the bus with both straps
of his bag undone.
He thought Year Eleven
was a very long way off.
I turn the label over.
My name is clearer on the back.
S. Rennie. 7B.
Ms. Reyes calls from the corridor,
Nearly finished?
I say, Nearly.
The bag is full now.
I carry the nameless things outside
and leave them beside the bins
for collection in the morning.
Then I take the jumper to the office.
The secretary has gone.
The tray is still there.
Umbrella.
Two keys on a blue ring.
A single black shoe.
I fold the jumper once,
then again.
On the log, beside S. RENNIE,
there is a box marked:
RETURNED.
I put the marker down.
For once,
I leave it empty.
Score: 97.04 out of 100.
Read the October 2026 National Honours