Night in the Archives

Chapter 1

Martin K. Blackwood really needed a job.

He was well aware that a flat in London required more than the meagre inheritance from his recently deceased mother. He couldn't possibly live on tinned peaches any longer and to do that he needed money. Fast.

"God rest her soul", he bitterly muttered into the early November cold. He allowed himself the one comment before brushing the thought off like snow. London was never one for snow, but he found that the ache returned every year, without fail. He wanted his footsteps to do more than make a sound and disappear, even if just temporarily. "That was quite nice", he mused, he could write it down in his pocket notebook for future poems.

He shook his head as if to physically reject that thought. No poetry now, Martin. The job hunt was on.

-

When he received the ad for the position of night guard at the British Museum, to say he was thrilled would be an understatement. As a child, he dedicated those thousand hours to reading and rereading Horrible History books. As an adult, he was what his few exes would call a fucking nerd, but his preferred term was "enthusiast". The answer was yas. Even if it wasn't exactly the most scholarly position, he felt invigorated by the thought of being surrounded by all that history. It was as if it came alive.

That next week, as he walked up those marble steps, he decided that that was definitely a line he would use in his interview.

The bustle was the first thing that hit him. He usually avoided crowds, which is ironic with his choice of city. But this crowd seemed less, antagonistic, in a way. Drawn together and splitting back out as if the whale skeleton, dangling from above, was commanding the tide. It felt clean. At least it made his brain feel smooth in a way that he hadn't felt in a while.

He watched the crowd disperse one last time, before squeezing past. He said squeezing, he knew he had plenty of space, but he still sucked himself back into his body, as a force of habit. But that wasn't what he was thinking about when he reached the front desk. His thoughts were still bad, just in a different way.

"Oh shit. He's cute.", he thought.

The man at the counter - Mr Shit He's Cute - wore an expression of extreme concentration, vague annoyance and a deep-seated level of exhaustion. "Expression" may have been the wrong word, as it struck him that maybe that's just what his face was like. That didn't help the pang just below his stomach.

"Can I help you?" He scowled, pushing a strand of dark, coarse curls away from his face. He seemed to be greying in the corners, both in terms of his hair and his general countenance, as if he were just about to fade from existence. Square, thick black frames pushed back the rest of his hair, completing his scholarly demeanour. A sweater vest, ironed shirt and slacks struck Martin as he remembered the stain on his shirt.

He cleared his throat.

"Oh, uh, I'm here for a job interview? For the night guard?"

"Right. Go down the corridor on the right, third door on the left."

He buried his head back into his work, brown hands against mounds and mounds of paper and what seemed to be a tape recorder.

Martin coughed awkwardly.

"What is it? Mr..."

"Martin Blackwood but - Martin's fine."

"Why are you still here, Mr Blackwood?"

Martin took the surname use to his chest. There were many more stressful things in this increasingly awkward situation, but he couldn't help fixating on this one. This was quickly replaced by his realisation that he had left the man's question hanging.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. I really don't want to bother you but I'm kind of terrible at directions, so is there any chance you could take me there?"

The man sighed. He sounded like his voice had been plunged into an eternal sigh. Why did he find that so attractive? He didn't get a chance to unpack that, before the man was hurrying off, deeper into the museum, without another word.

Martin sprinted a little to catch up to him, but not before glancing backwards and noticing something. 

The tape recorder was missing from his desk.

The man's speed caught him by surprise, as he was quite short, walking at a brisk, "Don't talk to me" pace.

Martin huffed a little, turning into a dimly lit corridor. The man stopped. Martin did not.

"Oof." He said, eloquently.

He turned, annoyance colouring his face.

"Here you are. Any questions?"

"Uh, yeah, um, I was just wondering, why is it that you have a tape recorder?"

He seemed to be taken aback by this, his first expression that wasn't outrightly negative.

"I...some of the Museum files for some reason couldn't be uploaded onto my laptop. I had to make do with recordings."

He had a clipped, academic accent, low and steady with his words as if he were carefully picking them. Martin hung on to every single one.

The man nodded to himself, happy with his answer, turning his face away from him.

The conversation was clearly over. Martin knew that he was standing in front of a door, about to go into a job interview. But he couldn't stop himself -

"What's your name?"

Martin winced. It was so childish, it was like asking if he could be his friend on a godforsaken playground -

"Jonathon Sims, Head Archivist of the British Museum."

Before Martin could say another word, Jonathon Sims turned and walked away.

Martin took this as a cue to turn to the door in front of him. He rubbed his palms against his trousers and knocked.

-

The interview was fine. It went - fine. Three eccentric old men shoved the job onto him. He wasn't going to think anymore about that. He just wanted to be grateful that he had a job and was saved from canned peach dinners.

He sat in his apartment, waiting for 5 p.m. to roll around. Night shift wasn't going to be difficult, due to a crippling insomnia, but he still wanted to be prepared. Pills were taken, binder on, and coffee downed. He settled into his usual doom scroll on Instagram in wait mode until he was struck by an idea. Crossing his legs on the sofa, he pulled a pillow into his chest, readying himself for the enactment of what was an absolutely stupid idea. Looking up a coworker on Instagram wasn't weird. Stupid, maybe, but not weird. It was purely for information collecting. That's it. Small talk, you know? Those thoughts slowly dissolved after he found something very interesting. That is, he found nothing. No iteration of Jonathon Sims came to any fruition. Typing his name into Google had similar results - apart from one article, which he had scrolled embarrassingly far down to find.

Jon had apparently gone to Cambridge, which explained the extreme poshness. The article was from two years ago, detailing his award-winning dissertation on the relationship between the paranormal and British modern history. Interesting enough, but provided more questions than answers. Why would someone choose to bring together those two topics? And dedicate so much time researching that with little to no previous research? And how did he end up working as an Archivist at the British Museum? Questions that he didn't have time to answer as he realised that it was already 5 p.m.

He grabbed his bag, promptly tripped over said bag and ran out the door.