Gift shop inventory wasn’t what Klara had in mind when she accepted the position at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. The main gallery was undergoing a major renovation and she had been looking forward to being part of that.

Instead she was in the gift shop. Counting postcards.

She’d completed the entire inventory before lunch, messaged the Assistant Kurator from whom she’d received her directions, and did not receive a reply so she counted again, finding no discrepancies.

One postcard caught her attention, though, in the same way the self portrait of Käthe Kollwitz did.

An angel with a look of boredom and frustration. A number puzzle was also featured in the picture which Klara solved with a glance. But her eyes kept returning to the angel’s frustration and found the picture resonated with her.

Interesting choice of words, resonate. Klara had thought her attunement, Resonant, had a root in the word ‘reason’.

She leaned back against the sales counter and looked at the bric-a-brac throughout the image. “To resonate. A bell resonates, and so the Synthetic term, Resonant. To share a wavelength. She smiled at the angel’s face, flipped the postcard over.

Albrecht Dürer: Melancholia I.

Then the shop door opened, the Assistant Kurator, Herr Anton Graf.

The small man fumbled, apparently having forgotten her name. “Ah, how goes the count?”

Klara stood up straight and put the postcard back on the rack. “Finished, Herr Graf.”

“Ah,” the man shifted uncomfortably, “Can you do a second count?”

“Completed already. Are there other places in the museum I can be of assistance?”

The man shuffled uncomfortably again, “I am afraid your references were not satisfactory for work in the museum proper, and we have been looking forward to alternatives.”

“There should be two references, Rektor Weber at Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg and Kuratorin Kauffmann at the Städel Museum.”

“Uh, we contacted two museums, Saarland said your work was unsatisfactory to the point of non-“

“I did not accept the position at Saarland.”

“Um, ah, and-“

“Never mind. I will go out into the city for the rest of the afternoon. Please have your working needs for me in order and you know how to contact me.

Klara stomped past the Assistant Kurator as he awkwardly wiped his glasses, and she went out the front door.

She walked briskly along a boulevard and found herself amongst a courtyard full of signs.

She read one, it looked like a legal opinion on a social issue. Interested, she turned to another sign opposite the path, another opinion on a different social issue, but not as written in as precise a language, more a language of a passionate writer. Odd.

She went back to the first one, then examined the paths. The signs were meant to be read both sides.

She went around to the other side and read the words there. It was another layman’s opinion on the issue matching the other side.

“Ohh,” she believed she understood the purpose of these. A lawyer’s thoughts paired with the thoughts of an average reasonable person.

She went sign to sign until she received notice that her services were not required at the museum in archivist capacity, she would be paid the full contract amount but to not return.

Klara stood staring across the street until a bus passed and jarred her attention back to the present.

She telephoned Kuratorin Kauffmann immediately, and had an allo at the second ring.

“Klara! Delighted! How goes Karlsruhe?”

“Yes, Frau Kauffmann, I am perplexed, I have not been accepted here, and was told your reference was unsatisfactory. I am bewildered by this, and was under the impression my work was adequate.”

“Adequate? You were exemplary! We’d be delighted to have you back here if Karlsruhe truly mangles my reference.”

Something was wrong. Klara sensed it the way she sensed the delight of the people who came to see her mural in Saarbrucken.

Frau Kauffmann was lying to her.

Klara thanked the Kuratorin for the offer and said she would give it proper thought. The truth, if one were to emphasize ‘proper’.

Then she telephoned Rektor Weber.

“Herr Weber, they are all awful. Saarland tried to get me to influence a public official to bypass some paperwork, Karlsruhe had me inventory the gift shop then dismissed me based to two terrible references, one I did not even work for. The wonderful placement in Städel? Lied to Karlsruhe, and to me! What is wrong with these people?”

Herr Weber thought it over for a moment, “Kauffmann asked you to come back there? She might have sought to sabotage you, she was so impressed with your work.”

Klara jabbered incoherently into the phone after which he replied, “You have a place to stay the night, ya? I will make some telephone calls right now and come to you tomorrow morning. I will accompany you wherever you go next.”

“May I come back to Rheinbach?”

“Absolutely. But first give me a chance to find you something… worthy of you.”

“I will… wait. And Danke. Danke shöne.”

“It is my pleasure and duty, Klara.”

Klara disconnected the call and looked up at the signs with two minds on one thought.