Simon Keeper pushed his janitor cart down the main hall, and in the wheels' reflection, something stirred. A half-carved violin bow was practicing again—three notes, always the same three notes, played with the desperation of someone who almost learned a fourth. He didn't look up anymore.
"Tuesday," he wrote in his log. "The Almosts are restless.
Third movement in the Unfinished Symphony section. Will adjust lighting."
The Museum of Almost never advertised. People just knew. When you finally gave up on something—really gave up, not just put it aside—you could bring it here. Tax write-off. Form 1040-A (A for Almost). The security guard at the front desk, who'd almost been a therapist, would give you a receipt and a tissue.
Simon had been the night janitor for seven years. He knew every piece like family.
"Evening, Marcus," he said to the architectural blueprints that redesigned themselves every night, endless rooms that would never be built. "Still working on that fourth floor?" The blueprints rustled eagerly.
In the Literature Wing, the novel at 743 pages was adding another. Always one more. It had been almost finished for forty years, donated by a woman who'd ended every conversation with "when my book comes out." She'd died at ninety, and her daughter had brought it here in a shopping bag that smelled like lavender and resignation.
Simon dusted around the typewriter that clacked away, typing:
"The morning broke like—" Delete. "The morning cracked like—" Delete. "The morning—" Delete.
He'd learned not to read over its shoulder. Hope was contagious in here, and hope for someone else's almost was a dangerous thing.
The chemistry set in the Science Hall was attempting the same failed experiment that had kept sixteen-year-old Jennifer Park from winning the state fair. Every night: mix, heat, wait for the color change that never came. Every night: the soft sound of glass breaking. Simon cleaned up the glass. He always cleaned up the glass.
His routine had a rhythm. Dust the cases (but never too clean— Almosts needed a little neglect to feel authentic). Check the temperature (too warm and the paintings thought they might still dry differently). Adjust the lighting (too bright and the acceptance letters grew aggressive).
He was the only one who understood that the Museum of Almost wasn't just storage. It was an ICU for dreams on permanent life support. Someone had to check their vital signs.
"How we doing tonight?" he asked the wedding dress that swayed on its mannequin.
The dress rustled silk that had yellowed at the edges. Donated by Mrs. Chen, who'd almost married her high school sweetheart. She'd kept it for fifty years before bringing it here. "Someone should wear it," she'd said. "Even if it's no one."
Simon noted in his log: "Wedding dress, 11:47 PM movement.
Hemline grayer than yesterday."
He never wrote what he really saw: how it danced to music only it could hear, how the train swept the floor in three-four time, how graceful loneliness could look in the right light. "Just another Tuesday," he told himself.
But in the glass cases, his reflection was starting to multiply.
The Academic Wing was always the loudest after midnight.
Hundreds of unfinished dissertations arguing with themselves, pages fluttering like moths around their binding posts.
"Mr. Keeper! Mr. Keeper!" The Mythology of Modern Transit had worked itself into a state again. Nine hundred pages on how subway maps were prayer wheels, how bus routes traced sacred geometries. The author had almost defended it before deciding to become a dentist instead.
"What is it tonight, Doctor?" Simon always called it Doctor. It helped.
"I've realized the error! Page 674, footnote 48—the crosstown bus doesn't represent purgatory, it IS purgatory! If you could just—"
"You know I can't." Simon adjusted the lamp. "But it's a good thought. Add it to tomorrow's draft."
The dissertation shivered with joy. By morning, it would forget, and discover the error again tomorrow night. They always forgot by morning. That's what made them Almosts—they could never quite hold onto the thing that would finish them. Simon found the mouse in the footnotes, eating anxiety.
"Tastes purple," the mouse announced, which was the most it had said all week. "That's new."
"The bibliography's gone sour. Too many self-citations." The mouse groomed its whiskers. "You're looking multiplied tonight."
Simon glanced at the glass cases. Seven of him stared back— janitor, rock star, teacher, therapist, father, vagrant, corpse. "It's nothing."
"It's Tuesday," the mouse corrected. "And you're becoming theoretical."
The Life Paths Gallery was where people donated the roads not taken. Acceptance letters waged their nightly war, paper airplanes diving and dodging in complex aerial combat. Harvard Medical vs. Rhode Island School of Design vs. that job teaching English in Japan.
"I would have made her happy!" screamed Pre-Med.
"I would have made her alive!" Art School shot back.
"I would have made her brave!" Japan circled above them both.
Simon sprayed them with water. They settled, dripping with possibility.
The wedding dress had started its evening waltz. It was dancing with air, always with air, to a song that went: almost, almost, almost, nearly, not quite, almost. The hem, which had been white in 1987, was the color of old newspapers now. Each night it danced, it left a little more of itself on the floor.
Simon wound the music box that helped it sleep. "Clair de Lune," three notes missing.
He was checking the thermostat when he saw them. In the New
Acquisitions section, still being catalogued: concert posters for The Mighty Mundanes, Simon's band from fifteen years ago. "ALMOST SIGNED!" the poster bragged. "NEARLY FAMOUS!" "PROBABLY
THE NEXT BIG THING!"
His guitar picks were in a little case. The set list from their last show. The demo tape labeled "DO NOT SEND - FINAL MIX PENDING." "No," Simon said.
But there was more. A teaching certificate with only student teaching left. A half-finished application to adopt a dog named Beethoven. A phone number on a napkin: "Call me - Sarah," with seven digits fading.
"When did I—" But he knew. You didn't have to physically donate. The museum took what you'd truly abandoned. And Simon had been here every night for seven years, breathing in the almost-air, tending other people's surrenders. The Almosts had noticed him noticing.
The novel stopped typing. The dissertation held its breath.
Even the wedding dress paused mid-turn.
"Join us," they whispered in paper voices. "You're already here. Stop fighting. Be preserved. Be beautiful. Be almost."
His band equipment was assembling itself in the corner, the drum kit building from memory. His guitar—when had he donated his guitar?—strung itself with light.
"Play the song," the Almosts begged. "Play what you almost played on the radio. Play what would have changed everything." Simon's hands moved without him. They knew the chords.
The Mighty Mundanes' equipment blazed to life. Simon's fingers found frets that felt like coming home. The amp hummed with fifteen-year-old electricity, and the first chord rang out—the one that the A&R guy had said "showed promise, real promise, call us when you're ready."
They'd never called. There was always one more mix, one more take, one more tomorrow.
"Play it," the Almosts chanted. "Finish it. Perfect it.
Preserve it."
The wedding dress swayed to the beat. The acceptance letters circled like a paper cyclone. The dissertation's pages became percussion, rustling in rhythm. Even Marcus's blueprints sketched a stage, a venue, a sold-out show that never was. Simon played. God help him, he played. And it sounded—
Almost right. Almost there. Almost the thing that would have maybe possibly changed—
"Stop." The mouse sat on the amp's edge. "You sound like margarine." "What?"
"Like almost-butter. Like nearby-cheese. Like practically music." The mouse produced a fresh apple core from somewhere. "This is an apple core. It's not almost an apple. It's exactly what it is—the part someone didn't want. But it's real. Bruise and all." "I was good," Simon protested. "We were almost—"
"Almost is a comfortable coffin." The mouse gnawed thoughtfully. "You dust their dreams so you don't have to live your own. You think taking care of Almosts is noble. It's not. It's hiding."
The Almosts hissed. The wedding dress rustled angrily. The novel typed faster: "The morning broke like—The morning shattered like—The morning—" "Look at your cart," the mouse insisted.
Simon looked. His janitor cart sat there, ugly and necessary.
Squeaky wheel that he'd never fixed. Mop bucket that leaked just a little. Spray bottles organized exactly how he liked them. Real. Solid. Tuesday-night-at-11:58 actual.
"The Almosts are beautiful," the mouse said, "because someone real takes care of them. Because someone who chose to be here, tonight, instead of somewhere else, gives them dignity. That's the job. Not to join them. To witness them." The equipment flickered.
"But if you'd rather be an exhibit..." The mouse shrugged, which is hard for a mouse. "There's space. There's always space."
Simon looked at his reflections in the cases. Seven versions, all almost. The rock star had cocaine eyes. The teacher looked tired. The father seemed confused. The therapist was taking notes on himself. The vagrant made sense. The corpse was patient. The janitor was holding a mop.
"I need to finish my rounds," Simon said.
The Almosts wailed. The guitar fell from his hands—not dramatically, just dropped, like guitars do when you're done playing. He picked up his mop.
"No!" the novel typed. "The morning broke like a man walking away from—"
But Simon was already walking. Down the hall. Past the pleading letters, the desperate dress, the reports and receipts and dreams deferred. He pulled his demo tape from his pocket—when had he grabbed it?—and placed it gently in an empty case.
"The Mighty Mundanes," he wrote on the label. "1998-2003.
Almost made it."
The tape settled into place. It looked right there. Preserved.
Honored. Done.
Simon clocked out for the first time in six months. Actually punched the card, heard the chunk of the machine. 4:47 AM. Outside, dawn was almost there. Not quite, but coming.
The mouse followed him to the door. "Where you going?"
"Breakfast. The diner where the waitress knows my name. Knows my actual name, not just 'hon.'" "What will you order?"
"Eggs. Over easy. Not almost over, not perfectly over. Just over easy. With toast. With butter—real butter. With coffee that tastes like morning."
The museum hummed behind him, all those beautiful Almosts settling back into their loops. Tomorrow someone would bring new donations. Tomorrow the wedding dress would dance. Tomorrow the novel would find the perfect word for morning, then lose it. "The museum will still be there tomorrow," Simon said.
"But tomorrow," he noted with surprise, "I might not be."
He walked into the almost-dawn, toward a diner that was definitely open, where a waitress named definitely-Brenda would definitely pour coffee into a cup that had never been anything but what it was: a cup that held coffee for people who had chosen to be awake at this particular hour on this particular Tuesday.
Behind him, the Museum of Almost breathed its quiet, beautiful, unfinished breath. And that—Simon realized, smiling—was exactly as it should be.
