She woke up in a strange room and did not remember how she got there. She stood up and surveyed the room to see what information she could ascertain from objects and layout of the room. She quickly spotted the exits and potential weapons. The closest and most deadly weapon was a candle holder which was odd to have in modern times. She grabbed it and saw matches nearby and took them as well. She walked to the nearest door and opened it and it was a bathroom with a claw foot tub. She checked the other doors and they led to a closet and the front led to a brick wall like the exit had been bricked over. The windows were fake lighted and showed painted scenes of a cityscape possibility NYC. There were no ways out so she decided to get some water and wash her face. She was wearing clothes from the late 20th century and did not remember the last thing that had happened. She let the possibilities run through her quick moving mind. She knew her mind was quick moving and she had a 100 ideas a second it felt like. She tried to remember her last case. Everything was fuzzy like it was slightly out of focus. She thought something has been erased from her mind. She scans the room for radio or computer or any technology she could use. There is an electric lamp and an analog clock on the nightstand. The time stayed locked at 12. She looked in the desk drawer and found a pen and pad. She took them out to make notes. She was in her own locked door mystery. She used her brain to try to figure out how she got there and how she could get out. There was nothing in the closet except skis and a wool blanket. The bathroom had a few basics in it. She reached in her pockets and found her keychain which had a pocket tool and digital key. Yeah she remembers now that this was what she used to use in the city to pay and open things. This room was from a different era of time than she lived in. She didn’t know what that meant but noted it in her quick fire brain. She found a postcard with a stamp on it and it said I won. Stamps were not used anymore so this had to be the past. This was quite a puzzle to figure out. The lettering was all stamped on it with a PO BOX in NJ. Well how she got there was not going to be figured out in this room but how to get out was the important task for her to calculate. If there is a postcard to be mailed out then there must be a way out. That is how her brain saw the problem and it whirled away solutions. She must look at the bricks that were outside the exit door. She felt them with her hand. She placed her tiny slender fingers and felt the rough texture with hand with her mind feeling for some irregularities that could point to a solution for her escape. There was one something weird about one of the bricks but she did not know what that meant. Ideas flicked through her head and the pad and pen came to her mind. She did a rubbing of the brick she suspected had a message in it. The words came to the paper like a developing photograph in a dark room. The letters read “no not here”. What did this mean as a thousand ideas ran through her head. She pulled out her pocket tool and pulled out the knife blade. She used it to poke at the wall looking for anything or if a brick was loose. She could not find anything but a solid brick wall.
She laid down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling and she spotted a smoke detector which did not match the rest of the décor of the room so she stood on the bed and pulled it down. Inside of was not a smoke detector but a note that read “can you find the other thing that is not like the other ” Everything else seemed to be in place except for the candle holder but then she looked at the cityscape behind the curtain. She paid close attention to the outline of the Brooklyn Bridge and hoped to notice something different from it. She could not figure it out yet but she drank some water and wondered what could be out of place. She also wondered who trapped her in here and why she can’t remember. Took the wool blanket out because her knees were cold. She unfolded the blanket and looked at the tag and it was manufactured for the military according to the tag. She covered her knees and continued to think how this all fit together. She looked under the bed but there was nothing there, not even a dust bunny. The floor was wood and had a small rug. She looked under the rug and there was a loose floorboard and she used her knife to pop it up. Under the floorboard was a small radio with shortwave, FM, and AM. She turned it on and tuned in at stations to try to get info about the area. It picked up a range of FM stations and AM. Hoping to find a news channel to find a date. She knew she must be in the past because those stations are not broadcast on those frequencies anymore. She found a news station now. She knows the time periods in her mind like the alphabet and can guess the decade after she hears enough news unless they mention a year before than. She closes her eyes and listens for clues. The news seems to be in the 1990s. Maybe music can give me a clue if she remembers the trivia from the last pub quiz. Some pearl jam and nirvana played on the radio and it helped her think she liked the oldies much better than the noise they make now. If this made any sense but she was still fuzzy on her own details of life it must be drugs that were used on her or they hit her in the head but no bumps or bruises. She was getting a little hungry so she thought she will have to escape soon. She thought if I am in NYC in the 1990s then I will get Brooklyn pizza with extra cheese. Oh wait she thought I will need money. They won’t take my credit key but I will figure that out she thought. She thought I can always steal credit cards. She wasn’t even born yet so they can’t find me.
That is a good idea for the next problem because I am going to figure this room out. I can pick pockets or dance on the street if I can find a hat. Good problems because it means I got out of the room. Then I can track down who put me here and give them a real bad day. I look at my few objects I have available to me. This is how I am looking at this situation as a puzzle with only a missing piece. The brick had to be a clue because it’s the door so how would you break a brick wall down. If I had a sledge hammer that would be great or explosives or nano construction bots. She thought for a few minutes with a lot of possibilities going through her head and she realized all the clues were red herrings because she didn’t belong in this room.
She found a clothes hanger in the bathroom that held the robe on it. She straightened it out and looked for where the words were on the brick and started to scrape away the mortar between the bricks. She hoped that there was just one layer of bricks and that she could get a little hole in the bricks. She had a hunch but she didn’t have anything else to do so why not try to escape. She scraped away for a good 30 mins but it was successful and she could poke the stiff wire through. There was only one layer of bricks so the next part of the plan. She bent the wire so she could swing it around outside and touch the outside edges of the door shape. She felt it hit something and it might be a button. She angled just right and pressed the button down like an elevator button. It made a great sound and the bricks were pulled up into the recesses of the top of the door way. She grabs her stuff and the blanket. She walked into a hallway that led into the front door of a brownstone. There was cash and a coat on the table near the door. She had the postcard that said I won printed on it. She stepped out into the street of sunny New York City circa 1994. She hoped more of her memory would return but at least she knew a lot about basketball history so she would have plenty of money. She knew whatever brought her here had to be stopped but she was fuzzy on details. She went for some brooklyn pizza extra cheese because you can’t fight evil on an empty stomach.
Amelio's Palace of Stories 