Free The Waterproof Bible by Andrew Kaufman

door buzzed and unlocked, and Rebecca went inside.
    The office was so sunny that Rebecca could see tiny particles of dust floating through the air. A chest-high counter divided the front from the back, and behind this counter stood Edward Zimmer. His suit was crisply pressed. He ignored her and continued making notes on a thin stack of yellow paper. The scratching of his fountain pen was the only sound in the room.
    “Hello, Rebecca,” he said finally, setting down his pen. He straightened his tie and smiled.
    “Hello, Edward.”
    Zimmer walked around the counter. He approached Rebecca until they stood very close together. They held hands, mutually squeezing only after their grips were strong. Zimmer raised his left hand and clasped it over the handshake. Other than Stewart, he was the only person Rebecca had ever trusted with the secret of her collection. Somehow it had seemed not only permissible, but necessary, to confess to Edward the true nature of the objects she stored in unit #207. It was a confidence he had never betrayed.
    “Good to see you,” Zimmer said.
    “What happened?”
    “We’re not sure.”
    “How bad is it?”
    “We don’t know,” Zimmer answered. He strengthened his grip. “Should we go have a look?”
    Taking a deep breath, Rebecca nodded. Zimmer nodded as well, then let go of her hand. Behind the chest-highcounter was a yellow door. On this door, stencilled in large black letters were the words EMPLOYEES ONLY. Taking a ring of keys from the front pocket of his pants, Zimmer walked behind the counter. He unlocked the yellow door and held it open. He waited.
    “It’s okay,” Zimmer said.
    Rebecca took a half-step and stopped.
    “I insist.” He waved her forward.
    Putting her hands in her pockets, Rebecca walked behind the counter. The carpet ended and her high-heeled shoes made a tapping sound on the concrete. Zimmer followed her, closing and locking the yellow door behind them.
    Rebecca was not the only person who rented a unit at E.Z. Self Storage for what Zimmer liked to call “metaphorical purposes.” In unit #357 David Glass stored all the objects he’d inherited from his grandmother. These included a hand-carved rocking chair that both he and his wife had seen his dead grandmother sitting in. Unit #111 was rented to Nancy Dixon and contained seventeen mirrors, each of which reflected scenes from what her life would have been like had she made different choices. Unit #438 held a radio that broadcast advice to Steven Moore. Whether it was good advice or bad, Steven didn’t know, because he’d always been too afraid to take it.
    But as far as Edward Zimmer was concerned, these were not his strangest clients. Far more bizarre to him were those who paid $179.37 a month to store old pots and pans, cheaply made furniture and boxes of shoes decades out of fashion. By contrast, Rebecca Reynoldswas one of his most favoured clients. Not only were the items inside her storage space priceless, but she had never been late with her rent, not even once.
    The hallway had no window. Fluorescent bulbs lined the ceiling, although most bulbs flickered or were burnt out. Before her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she felt Zimmer brush by. Rebecca followed, passing equally spaced storage units. All the units had an identical door, and all the doors were painted red and had an identical silver padlock hanging on them. Zimmer and Rebecca walked to the stairwell, climbed to the second floor and stopped in front of unit # 207.
    Flipping through the keys on his ring, Zimmer cleared his throat. “This is what we know,” he said. “Yesterday we had an intruder. I apologize for this. You don’t know how sorry we are. We don’t know how they got in, or why. There were no signs of forced entry. But for some reason, they plugged the sink in the third-floor bathroom and left the tap running. The tap ran all night. The bathroom in question is directly over unit #208, where there was extensive damage. We