When Veronkia emerged on two floors up, the elevator said it was between the fourth and fifth floors.  She patted her hair back into shape and looked around her. 

To the right, she could see a railing where the second floor opened up into the large cathedral-ceiling area around the front desk.  To the left, there was row after row of glass cases, each one labelled with tidy handwritten cards. Forward were rows of bookshelves.  She was pretty sure Ancient Acquisitions ought to be to the left, although she had no map of this area. 

If she didn’t leave this place in frustration after a day, she was going to map it all out, every inch of it, if she had to do it on lunch breaks for the rest of the year. 

She turned her cart to the left, checked her hair again, and headed into the rows of glass cases.  To the left, she was looking at displays of ancient garbage – pot shards, broken tools, a cracked tablet – where some wit had slipped in a couple modern pieces of similar junk with the exact same style of placards.  To the right, a complete section of a frieze gave way after several meters to a section of hieroglyphs.  Continue reading →