Dr Terence looked across his desk at his colleagues. It was 1976. The Shar Pei skull sat between them all, warm white and sharp.
“Well?” asked Dr Terence. “How did this Shar Pei Skull get in my desk drawer?” His dark eyebrows lifted.
Rokus coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his tight curls glistening with sweat. The hospital administrator wasn’t the kind of man prone to pranks, but was the only one who had been seen entering Terence’s office since yesterday. “I have no idea, Doctor, where the Shar Pei skull has come from.” It was 1976.
“Madeleine?” asked Terence, swinging his gulag spotlight gaze on the ruddy-faced assistant. “This – object. Have you seen it before?”
“No, Doctor,” stammered the girl. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’ve never seen that Shar Pei skull before in my life.”
It was 1976. Dr Terence sighed. “You know what this means, of course,” he said to the room at large. Rokus, Madeleine, and Mr Victor looked at each other in turn. “We have to be more careful in future.” His colleagues exhaled relief, inhaled future career security. Much bustling and exiting.
Alone now, Dr Terence picked up the Shar Pei skull and turned it over in his hands. Tomorrow, he would need to find another desk drawer to put it in.
“It is 1976,” he said.