Tariq is at the train station. He has a big bag and a small backpack. He is going home after a long trip. He is very tired. He sits down on a bench and puts his bags on the floor. He takes out his phone and calls his wife. She does not answer. He waits a few minutes and calls again. She still does not answer. He sends her a text message. He writes, "I am on my way home. See you soon!" Then he picks up his bags and walks to the exit. He gets on a bus and travels home. Tariq arrives at his apartment building.

He puts his hand in his pocket. He cannot feel his keys. He checks his other pocket. No keys. He opens his backpack and looks inside. He moves everything around. He cannot find his keys. He checks his big bag too. Still no keys. He sits down on the steps outside the building. He feels very worried. He thinks about where he last had his keys. He remembers putting them in his backpack at the train station. He opens his backpack again and looks more carefully.

The keys are not there. He realizes he left them at home. Tariq calls his wife again. She does not answer. He goes back to the train station. He talks to a woman at the information desk. He says, "Excuse me, I lost my keys. Did anyone find them?" The woman looks in a box behind the desk. She says, "What do your keys look like?" Tariq says, "They are silver. There is a small blue keychain on them." The woman smiles. She says, "Someone found these keys on a bench about an hour ago." She puts the keys on the desk. Tariq is very happy. He says, "Thank you so much!" He goes back home, and this time he can open the door.

After a long and exhausting trip, Tariq finally arrives at the train station and settles onto a bench to collect his thoughts before heading home. He pulls out his phone and tries calling his wife, but she does not pick up, so he sends a quick text telling her he is on his way. Feeling relieved that the journey is almost over, he shoulders his bags and makes his way to the exit, completely unaware that a problem is waiting for him at home. By the time he reaches his apartment building, the tiredness has caught up with him, and he barely notices how heavy his bags feel as he reaches into his pocket for his keys. His hand finds nothing but an empty pocket, and a cold wave of panic washes over him. Tariq searches methodically through every compartment of his backpack and then goes through his larger bag, pulling items out and placing them carefully on the steps.

Nothing. He sits down on the front steps of his building, trying to think calmly about where he might have left the keys. He recalls placing them in the front pocket of his backpack at the train station, which means they either slipped out on the bench or were handed in somewhere. His wife still is not answering her cell phone, and the building has no doorman who could let him in, so he makes the frustrating decision to go all the way back to the station. Back at the train station, Tariq approaches the information desk and explains his situation to the staff member on duty. "Someone may have handed in a set of keys," he says.

"They are silver, and there is a small blue keychain attached." The staff member checks a box of lost items behind the counter and quickly produces a set of keys that match the description exactly. It turns out a fellow passenger had found them on the bench and handed them in less than an hour earlier. Tariq feels an enormous sense of relief wash over him as he takes the keys back. He makes a mental note to attach something much more visible to his keychain so this never happens again, and he sets off home with a tired but grateful smile.