Imagine yourself standing in an open parking lot. A few trees litter the horizon, and you can just barely make out the shape of some industrial buildings in the distance. There is a light powder of snow drifting across the concrete where you stand. Someone has gathered it into heaps in the corners of the parking lot. Strangely, there are no cars here. Only the large, unremarkable building in front of you. Walk towards it.

As you draw nearer, you see several doors on each wall of the building, each designated with a large number in bold font. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. You enter through one of these doors and find yourself inside a large warehouse with shelves that stretch to the ceiling, nearly thirty feet above you. It’s like a colossal antique shop. Each shelf is filled with an array of mechanical knicks and knacks: a half-dozen skidoos, telescopes, model ships, farm equipment. Only some of it is recognizable.

Rounding the corner of one of these shelves, you find yourself face to face a with an nineteenth century train locomotive. It’s coal black chimney rises above it like a flag. Even here, inside the warehouse, it rests on a set of tracks that extend several meters in front of it. Beside the locomotive is an ancient fire engine, maybe a century old. Remarkably, it is polished and shining, as if it rolled out of the factory just yesterday.

Beside you is a large metallic structure. Dozens of tiny silver arms reach out at every angle, each coming to rest on the row of cylinders that wraps around the machine. It’s oddly squid-like. It could be from a science fiction movie, a mid-century factory. You’re not sure which. Leaning in for a closer look, you notice a woman facing you on the opposite side of the structure. Startled, you begin to call out, but realize “she” is only a mannequin. She wears a cream-coloured dress. She could be a flight attendant.

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