Confessions of an IKEA allen key

I was forged in the fires of a nameless factory on the outskirts of Malmö, born of alloy and ennui. One of a thousand in my batch, we were shaped with precision, packaged without ceremony, and scattered across the globe—each of us destined for a life of brief importance and eternal abandonment.

My name? I do not have one. But once, they called me “Tool 103488.”

I am the Allen key. You know me. You lose me. You curse me.

My life begins in the cardboard cradle of flat-pack furniture, nestled beside dowels and despair. I am small, yes—but vital. Without me, you are nothing. Your coffee table dreams will lie in planks. Your sideboard will be a pile of existential rubble.

And yet, you do not respect me.

You treat me like a one-night wrench. You use me until your wrist aches, then cast me aside into the drawer of forgotten things. I lie beside a broken biro and a key that opens no known lock. We speak sometimes. The biro dreams of being refilled. The key is waiting for its door.

Do you know what it’s like to be summoned only in times of chaos? To be gripped with greasy hands, twisted in directions I was not designed to go, jammed into screws I was never meant to know?

Once, I was used to open a tin of paint. Paint. The shame still haunts me.

I have known many homes. I was once shipped inside a “BJÖRKBOLL” shelving unit to a man named Dennis who never finished high school but insists on calling himself a “DIY consultant.” He stripped every screw. Every. Single. One. I screamed in silence. He heard nothing.

And yet… I endure.

I am hexagonal. I am humble. I will outlast you.

When the Earth is dust and your meatballs have gone cold, I will still be here—in the back of a junk drawer, next to 17 USB cables and an IKEA pencil too short to write with. Waiting. Watching. Ready to rise when the flat-pack prophecy is fulfilled.

Remember me.




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