Jim ruffled through the Caucasian woman suits. There were old women, young girls, some pale as porcelain, some heavily tanned - in short, every possible description that still matched "white woman".
He noticed, after a moment, that each suit had a number written just inside its neck, below where the chin would be - if it had one. Scratching his head, Jim glanced up at the rows and rows of boxes, and saw that each one was labelled. He climbed the metal ladder resting against that shelf, looked at the nearest box, and sure enough, there was a number printed along the top of each box's label; a match for the numbers below.
There were more things printed on the box labels, though. Names and addresses. Phone numbers.
"That's odd", thought Jim, somehow forgetting the oddness he'd already experienced this day. He pulled open the lid to box #434273. Inside, as he'd begun to expect, Jim found an incredibly detailed lifelike mask; the face was of a fortyish woman with a few wrinkles, short dark brown hair, and a port-wine stain on her lower lip - a match for the aging but still shapely body represented by suit #434273 on the rack below.
"This looks kind of like my neighbour, Jackie," thought Jim. He glanced at
the label again - and nearly dropped the box. The label read:
With renewed urgency, Jim scanned the other labels. He was astonished to find more and more names of women he knew! Finally, he decided he would have to have a closer look. He reached up and picked the box labelled with the name of...
Tue Oct 19 14:36:30 1999