Framed by Nikki Andrews

need.”
    “How do I pick out a particular story?”
    “You know the date?”
    “Not precisely. It was winter, ten years ago.”
    “Good enough,” Jim said. He ran his finger down a line of cabinet drawers and opened one, riffling through the cards inside until he found the appropriate envelope. “Here you go. November, December, January. If that’s not the right one, just look in here for the next one, or the one before, whatever you need. Don’t put anything away, though. We have an intern who does that, and he goes crazy when he finds things out of place. Can’t blame him, I suppose. Anything else? Oh, the water cooler’s upstairs, sorry about that. So’s the ladies’ room. All set?”
    “I got it, Jim. Thanks a lot. See you around sometime, right?”
    He bustled away, and Sue sat down with a sigh. Such a lovely day outside, and here in this basement, she couldn’t even look out a window, since there were none. She set her notebook and pen to one side and tested the motion of the handle. It was so easy to work that she had to remember to slow her movements in order to keep the type on the screen readable.
    It didn’t take her long to figure out the system. The microfiche was set up almost like a book; each page of the newspaper was displayed in its entirety, though only a part of it showed on the screen at any one time. Moving the handle up and down let her read from top to bottom of the page. If she moved the handle to the right, she could move to page two, page three, and so on to the end of the issue, and then on to the next week. A leftward move took her back to the previous page or issue. It was like a time machine, she thought, spinning through the month in a single motion. The whimsy delighted her.
    It was tempting to read through the pages one by one; old stories that tickled her memory jumped out at her and begged for her attention. The fire at the Churchville general store; kids rescued after they tried to cross the river on thin ice; the perpetual debate over the placement of new roads. Preparations for the big Thanksgiving parade that traditionally got rained out brought a sad smile to her face. Only two years ago, the long-time organizer had died, and no one stepped up to take her place. The parade faded into the past. Maybe someone would start it up again this year.
    Enough of that. Sue took a firm grip on the handle and edged forward a couple of weeks, searching for stories about a big snowstorm. She knew it had happened before Christmas, because Yaneque had mentioned she’d been released from the hospital in time to put up her tree. An accident with a logging truck and a delivery van on top of the pass would surely have rated some kind of story. Maybe not page one, but something.
    Ah, there it was. The accident didn’t rate page one, but the snowstorm did. A large picture of an impressive snowplow hurling a wave of snow took up the top third of the page in the December 8 edition of the Crier .
    Second Storm in Two Weeks Dumps Eight Inches
    Temple Pass Closed
    The second significant storm of the season dropped up to eight inches of snow on parts of the Monadnock region Tuesday. State and local crews worked all day and into the night to clear roads already lined with high banks of cleared snow from previous storms. Most schools and many businesses closed early or did not open at all.
    The storm followed close on the heels of an earlier storm that produced ten inches at the weather station atop Pack Monadnock. Police reported numerous minor accidents in all the towns, with one major accident that left a driver hospitalized and closed the highway over Temple Mountain. (Story, page 3.)
    Sue scrolled on and found the story on page three. There was no picture of the accident, but Yaneque’s business photo was featured.
    Local Businesswoman Seriously Injured
    Yaneque Duprey, owner of RunAround, a courier service, suffered serious injuries when she lost control of her vehicle at the pass on Temple