Her mind raced as she struggled to find a solution to her dilemma. There just weren’t any obvious possibilities, and time was working against her. With only hours left to figure it out, the young woman wasn’t any closer than when she had started.
Suffice it to say, the outlook was not good.
She had spent a while looking through several photo albums to see if she could glean a clue but to no avail. One album had seemed promising, but it turned out that there wasn’t nearly enough in it for her to go on. As she had wasted most of her time on the photos, she would now be forced to work too quickly for comfort.
Had there been anything unusual about her holiday celebrations? As far as she could recall, everything had gone smoothly. Christmas had been quiet as always, with just a few guests. New Year’s Eve had been a little more boisterous, of course, but that was normal. She would get nothing from her holiday memories.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t just going through photos that had taken up so much of her time. She had been rather busy today, which was foolish of her. She should have known better than run out on errands that had nothing to do with the urgent task at hand.
Anxiously, the young woman checked the clock. In theory, she had seven hours left. In practice, however, she only had about five. Once the night became late, her brain would become sluggish, unable to provide the answer to her problem. And beyond knowing the answer, she also needed time to organize it into a coherent, believable format.
“I’m doomed,” she whispered, with a shiver. No, wait—she couldn’t just give up. Not yet, not while there was still a chance of success.
She scanned her bedroom for any important objects. Sure, there were her beloved books, but it would take too long to discover which ones might be useful, if any. The pair of ancient goldfish slowly swimming around their tank couldn’t tell her anything. But wait—what about her other pets?
That wouldn’t do at all, she realized. She had exhausted all of those options weeks ago. There wouldn’t be any more useful information in the histories of her dogs and cats. Seriously, was it even possible for her to come up with a workable idea by nightfall?
Anyway, back to her room. Were there any hints in the pictures on the wall or the bookcase? A hummingbird so energetic that it was composed of paint splatters, a girl in a gorgeous pink dress, three metal birds in a row, portraits of cats made from maps, a golden eagle with a noble expression—still nothing. Her mind was a blank.
It was hopeless.
The young woman collapsed onto her bed and wrapped the fluffy comforter around herself, swamped by despair. Again and again she racked her brain, desperately trying to come up with something, anything, that could get her out of this predicament.
She knew that unless she was struck with sudden inspiration, she would never be able to solve this conundrum. Waiting was all that was left for her to do, stuck as she was in this quandary. Perhaps listening to a bit of music would help…
Her laptop lay nearby on the bed. She sat up and opened the computer, and soon had some of her favorite music playing to soothe her frayed nerves. With a sigh, she clicked the icon for her word-processing software. After all, there were worse things to do than staring at a blank document while wishing for a stroke of brilliance.
As yet, she had never failed to complete her work on time. If she was lucky, an idea would pop into her head soon, and allow her to still write her column and turn it in to the newspaper before the deadline. One could only hope.
