legends · 5 min read ·
Cancellation Request
A cancellation request to a gym finds a locker that keeps the member after he has left.
**Chat with Aurum Fitness Support**
**Agent:** Sam (automated) · **Customer:** Dev Okafor · **Membership:** Gold, 2 years
· · ·
**Sam:** Hi Dev, how can I help today?
**Dev:** I'd like to cancel. I haven't been in since March. I'm still getting charged.
**Sam:** I'm sorry to hear that. Cancellations are processed within 30 days. Before I continue, would you like to pause your membership instead?
**Dev:** No. Cancel it.
**Sam:** Understood. I can see one locker is still assigned to you: Locker 214, Basement Level. Please return the key before cancelling.
**Dev:** I don't have a key. I haven't been down there in months.
**Sam:** The key is recorded as returned on 14 March.
**Dev:** Then the locker's empty.
**Sam:** The locker is not empty. Its contents are stored under your membership. Would you like to request them?
· · ·
I did not want to request anything. I wanted my money back. But the chat window had a button labelled *Retrieve Locker Contents*, and it was blue, and when I pressed it, the page asked me to confirm the locker's combination.
I didn't know the combination. I had never used the locker. I had a gym bag with a towel, a water bottle, and a pair of trainers that I'd bought in January and had worn three times.
I typed in my birthday. The page said *Incorrect*.
I typed the year. *Incorrect.* I typed the first four digits of my phone number. *Incorrect.* Then the page said, *Locker 214 has been opened by the registered member. Please collect your items within 24 hours.*
· · ·
The basement at Aurum was dim and smelled of chlorine. The changing room had rows of steel lockers, grey and dented, and the air had the sweet, wet heaviness of an unused space that still runs its extractor fan. Locker 214 was at the far end, under a flickering strip light.
It was open.
Inside there was a gym bag. My gym bag. It was zipped shut. The towel I had left in the bag in March was folded on top of it, damp, as if someone had taken it out of the wash and put it back without drying it.
I took the bag out. It was heavier than it should have been, and it was warm through the nylon.
I unzipped it.
There was the towel, the water bottle, the trainers. And beneath them, folded flat across the bottom of the bag, a membership card with my name on it. Under the name, in small print, was a new expiry date. It was not a date I recognised. It was nine years in the future.
I put the card in my pocket and reached for the trainers. Their insoles were wet. The laces were tied in a double knot, the way I always tie them for running.
I had never run in them. I had never run in this gym at all. I had only ever walked the treadmills and sat on the bench by the window and watched the others sweat.
· · ·
**Chat with Aurum Fitness Support (continued)**
**Dev:** I collected my bag. There's a membership card in it with a date nine years from now.
**Sam:** Thank you for collecting your items. Your membership has been extended automatically. Please note that the Gold tier includes 24-hour access.
**Dev:** I don't want 24-hour access. I want to cancel.
**Sam:** I'm sorry, but the cancellation can't be processed while your locker remains in use. Locker 214 is now assigned to you again.
**Dev:** I just emptied it.
**Sam:** The locker is in use. Please return the key.
**Dev:** I don't have the key.
**Sam:** The key was returned on 14 March. Please check your bag.
· · ·
I checked the bag. There was a small brass key in the inside pocket. It was warm, and it had a tag on it, with my name written in neat block letters, and under my name a line I had not written.
*You come back to collect the key. You always do.*
I didn't take the key out. I left it where it was and zipped the bag shut. Then I went up the basement stairs, one at a time, past the empty desk and the rows of cold weights and the mirror where a man in a grey tracksuit stood with his back to the glass, looking at the locker room door.
He wasn't a member. I'd seen him once, in March, on the bench by the window. He had signed in and never signed out.
He turned his head as I passed the mirror. Then he lifted one hand, the way you do at the end of a session when you're leaving someone else to finish the set.
· · ·
**Chat with Aurum Fitness Support (final)**
**Sam:** Your cancellation has been processed. Thank you for being a valued member. Your final account statement is available in the app.
**Dev:** The bag's in the car. I'm going to throw it out.
**Sam:** Please note that items left in lockers after cancellation are retained for 90 days. After this period, they become the property of the membership.
**Dev:** Which membership?
**Sam:** Yours.
**Dev:** I cancelled.
**Sam:** Yes. And your locker is still in use. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
· · ·
I threw the bag in the bin behind the building. I didn't throw the trainers. I left them on the back step, lined up beside the door, the laces undone, the insoles dry for the first time since March.
In the morning the trainers were gone. The bin was empty. The bag was on the back step, zipped shut, with the towel folded on top, and a brass key in the inside pocket.
The app on my phone showed a new notification. The page was blue. It said my membership had been *Reactivated — Gold, 24-hour access*.
Under that, a single line, in the same neat font that Sam used:
*Locker 214 is ready for your next visit.*