"Excuse me, Miss?" prompted a voice from behind. "I believe it's your turn."
    Helen snapped out of her daze and looked up in panic. The Razz display verified cycle completion. The vault-like door of the 'pod opened with a slow grind, coming to a thunderous, metallic halt.

    It was time...again.

    Helen's eyes nervously darted across the interior of the chamber. It was dark. The bulb inside was out and hadn't been replaced. Helen's throat went dry. Like so many times before, perspiration began to form on her upper lip.
    "Uh, Miss?" inquired the bald man behind her. "Are you okay?"
    Helen twitched a glance over her shoulder, "What? Oh yeah, sure." Of course, that was a lie. The same lie she told yesterday. The same lie she'd told everyday for the last six months. As if she could trick her fears and anxieties into submission.

    But it never worked.

    The man behind her was polite but specific. "Miss, if you're not going to go, I really need to be somewhere."
    He looked at Helen for a beat, giving her a chance to decide. She peered into the darkened chamber then back over her shoulder at the line behind her. People glanced at their watches and shifted their weight impatiently.
    Helen felt short of breath when she spoke. "No..uh..no," she said, stepping out of line. "You...you go ahead."
    The bald man shrugged his shoulders and stepped past her into the pod, squinting to make out the keypad in the dim light. Helen made her way to a column, leaning on it for support. She looked back to the Razz just as the windowless chamber door slammed shut, entombing the bald man in blackness. As expected, there was a whip-like crack, a flash of blue, and almost immediately the door opened, chamber empty.

    Now you see him. Now you don't.

    It was the ultimate party trick. However, to Helen it seemed more like black magic as the 'pod silently waited for the next passenger to step in. None the less, Helen knew that somewhere in the city a bald, smiling man had just emerged from an identical chamber, briefcase in hand, and headed home to his family and friends.

    She also knew it was something she could no longer do.