Dark Museum

Blair

In all the years since its invention, and all the technological advancement in sound, they still couldn't invent a microwave with either a silent feature or a less grating noise than its shrill beep. Blair's washing machine played a gentle tune when its cycle finished. Her alarm clock offered a plethora of pre-programmed alerts or pulled from her music files if she wished. But the microwave ...

And since its invention, it couldn't reheat food without making it soft and fiery. In the case of the rubbery, re-heated chicken in her leftover sweet and sour takeout, the microwave also made it dry.

People said she had to eat — the more ambitious ones urging her to enjoy her food. If she were getting anywhere with her project, she might be motivated to treat herself. As it stood, feeding herself served as a reminder that her life — with its dragged-on tedium at the law firm, the bumper-to-bumper crawl to and from, and the crush of humanity on the subways — might not be worth the effort.

She took the soggy paper box to her desk and checked her phone. It had a signal, but no one had called. Someone should have known something by then, but the way her luck was going, even if the people she "hired" had solid information, they probably thought she was full of shit and went to the police. The longer they paused between phone calls, the closer Blair listened for sirens at her own door.

Being creative used to come so naturally. She could spend all night designing, doodling, manipulating, and by morning have an extraordinary piece to show for it (whether or not her parents thought she was wasting her time). The same effort — or more — got her nowhere now. With her mind fried from the law office, where she associated with paralegals half her age because she refused to get a Juris Doctorate, she came home to her computer and seethed about what had been taken from her. First, it was her museum, then it was her time, and now it was her aging mental capacity.

Without her art, there was nothing left for her. Toil in an office until she died. She thought about dying a lot. The unfinished pieces around her place gave herself the illusion of picking herself up, but they were never good enough, even this close to having her own show. Never like before.

The phone rang.

Her spoon clattered on the floor when she answered.

"Blair, we have all of them," Nasir said as his opener.

"All of them? All five?"

"Yup. Now, where are we taking them?"

The funk that had claimed Blair for the past few years lifted, replaced by a pounding heart and shaking hands. A stack of fabric and patterns dropped to the floor as she searched for the scrap of paper where she'd written the address.

"Tenth," she said. "Tenth near Gansevoort. There's a loading dock. How fast can you be there?" She couldn't stop smiling.

Erica said something barely audible on Nasir's side.

"Erica says about two hours."

Blair did a quick mental calculation, but her brain was too excited to think. "Two hours is perfect. I'll meet you there."

"We just want to remind you we kept up our end of the bargain," Nasir continued.

"Just help me get them inside and you'll be free to go." She hung up before he could say anything else.