almost imagine that things were back to normal, that no one had ever heard of the voxsola. The harsh ringing of the bell marking the end of her shift snapped her out of her thoughts and back to the present.
Sylvia carefully packed the beetles back into the sample case, then gently carried it to the appropriate drawer. Gulping down the dregs of her coffee, she shoved the mug, the poems and the lab book into her bag and turned to leave the room. On her way out, her eyes were involuntarily drawn to the disused electrical sockets, their location imprinted on her subconscious. The wooden plugs were all still securely in place. As she headed towards the door, she stubbed her toe on one of the stools that had been carelessly left out from under the bench. Cursing, she walked to the door and almost found herself reaching for the light switch as she left the room. Appalled, she drew back her hand and cradled it in her arm. The light switch was still securely boarded over. Sylvia slammed the door behind her and waited in the darkened corridor for her heart rate to return to normal before she walked down the hall. She grabbed her coat off the rack as she walked into the cold air of the streets.
*
Sylvia had been overjoyed when she had been offered the job cataloguing the museum’ s beetle collection. She could quit her technician job at the university lab, where the pay was meagre and the respect even less. The museum job was not only higher paid, it came with the security of a permanent contract, something almost unheard of in her field anymore. And most importantly, it was part time; she would finally be able to concentrate on her writing. That evening she went to the pub with her friends to celebrate.
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