Imagines

So you are definitely not imagining it.

You start walking, stepping quietly toward the back in your standard-issue black sneakers. It does occur to you to wonder why you care so much whether there’s someone else in the store with you. Honestly, you should probably run in the other direction; the company doesn’t pay you enough to risk your life for consumer electronics. But after that interaction with your boss . . . ugh. One more thing and you are definitely going to get fired, and then you’ll have to tell your boyfriend, and he’ll look at you all pitiably because you know he thinks it’s dumb you work at Best Buy, anyway. And it is, maybe! But also you suspect that he imagines this life where you’re married and you don’t have to work, you get to just stay home and take care of his babies, and what if getting fired was the trigger that shot the bullet of the rest of your life at you? These are things you think you want? Maybe? But having this job is a way of having more time to think about it. Not that you think about it. You actively do not think about it.

But getting murdered in the storeroom of the Best Buy in the next five minutes would definitely prevent that decision from getting made. It would solve a lot of problems, actually. You wouldn’t have to work this job anymore. You wouldn’t have to wonder whether the feelings you think you feel for your boyfriend are real or not. You wouldn’t have to feel insane for wanting things you can’t even name.

You get to the back of the storeroom, and it’s totally empty and dead and quiet. So great, another sign that you’re completely insane. And maybe your boyfriend was right; maybe meds would be a good idea. It’s time to get out of here. Time to go home and crawl into bed with your probably already-asleep-and-snoring boyfriend, and lie there unable to fall asleep, and then move to the couch and watch that TV show you always watch, about the man who experiences difficulty but it causes him to learn something about the world and also about himself.

So you turn around to leave, and standing there in the shadows in front of you is a dark, hooded figure.

You shriek in surprise and the figure reaches out, plaintively, saying, “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you! Bible.”

“Well, you did, though!” you say, trying to catch your breath. The figure steps forward into the light, and you recognize her as the woman from earlier, in the store.

“Hey, what the heck,” you say. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be back here.”

“Pssh, I’m not supposed to be anywhere,” the woman says. “I need to talk to you, but we have to hurry. We have three minutes before mall security does a sweep of this area.”

She pulls back her hood and reveals the glossiest, sleekest bun you have ever seen in your life. Then she removes her sunglasses and looks at you, smiling. It’s Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian is standing in front of you, exuding pure radiance and perfection in the messy, dusty storeroom of the after-hours Best Buy.

You are confident you’re about to faint as she starts walking toward you.

“I’m Kim,” she says. “And I really need your help.”

SO: IF YOU EVER WONDERED what you would do if Kim Kardashian surprised you at work and said she needed your help, the answer, it turns out, is that you would just panic and freeze and not move or say anything because you do not really believe this is happening to you or that reality is even a thing anymore.

You’re just a normal person. You have a boring, uninteresting life. You are irrelevant to everything. You’re a disappointment to everyone you’ve ever met, including yourself. You do not matter. But then Kim Kardashian is looking at you, and her eyes are like cinnamon with diamonds mixed in, and you have no response to anything.

“Uhhh, are you okay?” she asks.

You blink awake and try to force yourself to action. This is the most wanted criminal in the country. Should you be scared? You feel like you should be scared, but you’re not scared. You’re excited.

“No! I’m okay! You just surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”

Which is officially the world’s dumbest thing to say, because OF COURSE YOU WERE NOT EXPECTING TO RUN INTO KIM KARDASHIAN IN THE STOREROOM OF YOUR JOB AT THE BEST BUY AT THE MALL. Your brain is pleading with your mouth like Please shut up, you’re embarrassing us.

But Kim nods understandingly. She’s so gracious, so patient. “Kind of a long day, yeah? Is your boss always like that?”

You nod. “Kind of, yeah. Thank you for distracting him, by the way.”

“I was so annoyed! The way he was talking to you? I was seriously about to smack him over the head with my purse, like ‘Don’t be fucking rude,’ you know?”

“I appreciate it. He might still be yelling at me if you hadn’t intervened.”

“I wasn’t being totally selfless, if I’m honest,” Kim says. “I just came in for some stuff I need for my phones, but then I recognized you.”

There is no way you heard that correctly. “You recognized me?”

Kim nods. “You had a YouTube channel, right?”

You blink. “A long time ago,” you say. “I’m surprised anyone remembers.”

“You were so good!” Kim says enthusiastically. “You know so much about electronics and about hacking things . . . and decrypting files?”

You narrow your eyes at Kim. “I don’t think I did any episodes about decryption.”

“But you could have if you wanted to, right?”

You shrug. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Kim tilts her head, and her eyes on you become slightly more intense. “Do you really not know? Or are you saying that because that’s how the patriarchy wants you to feel about your accomplishments?”

“What? What does the patriarchy have to do with anything?”

Kim exhales, shaking her head. “Listen, I’m sorry I’m in such a hurry, but I really need your help. There’s an encrypted file on this device. There was a link to it posted in a comment beneath my last selfie, and it’s important that I make sure it contains the information that I think it contains. Is there any way you could take a look at it and see what you find?”

She reaches out, and you instinctively take the thing she’s holding out to you. It’s a prepaid burner phone that looks like it’s been through a war. All scratched up, duct-taped in places.

Kim notices you inspecting the phone and shakes her head ruefully. “The government makes it very difficult for me to post selfies without giving away my personally identifying geo-tagged location. They make it hard to take selfies in general, LOL. I have a bunch of old phones that we mod, but it’s hard to keep them up and running.”

“ ‘We’?”

Kim shrugs. “Me and my . . . friends.”

“You modded this yourself?”