Huntsman In- | Searching For- Nickey
I started calling her N.H. in my notes. A phantom.
My break came from an unlikely source: a retired systems administrator named Ed, who had run a small BBS in Oregon in the late ‘80s. I’d posted the query on a vintage computing forum. Ed messaged me: Searching for- Nickey Huntsman in-
I have not found Nickey Huntsman. But I have found her absence, and it has a shape. It looks like a purple jacket. It sounds like a tape hiss before a voicemail. It feels like 2:47 AM on a Tuesday, clicking a dead link, and realizing someone, twenty-five years ago, was searching for her too—and never stopped. I started calling her N
Nickey Huntsman, if she existed, would have been a child in 1998. DeepSix spoke of her in past tense, then present—“would be 14 now.” A missing girl. A forgotten case. My break came from an unlikely source: a
Here’s what I’ve learned: Some searches are not meant to end. “Searching for- Nickey Huntsman in-” isn’t a query. It’s a state of being. The hyphens are the space between what we know and what we refuse to forget. “In-” is not a destination—it’s the pause before the answer that never comes.
It began, as these things often do, at 2:47 AM on a Tuesday.
