He sat across a portrait painted from glass. He had spent the day debating whether he could justify a trip to the museum just down the street. Before he ever felt a decision was made, he found himself in this small, derelict room. The motions are always a blur. Steps on concrete, a cold press of hand to metal, an exchange of cash. Perhaps a school was visiting that day. Maybe tourists were visiting, he supposed. He couldn’t really remember, and found it hard to justify his current position. The truth is, he never actually wanted to go to the museum that day. But sometimes the walls of your house become too much to handle. Sometimes the couch just swallows you a bit too deeply, and the walls just seem to cover up some impossible truth. So you have to take the initiative to leave and find something to occupy your melting thoughts. Even if leaving is unbearable, the sun bites a bit too harshly or the light offends your eyes, anything’s better than letting the doghouse tangle you in.
Those were the sort of thoughts he used to explain this sluggish vacation. The museum’s interesting, he thought. It has all sorts of varying and interesting things to consider, he thought. What he doesn’t know, or maybe what he doesn’t want to recognize, is that art doesn’t mean anything if you don’t let it in. After about an hour of staring at nothing, thinking nothing, he found himself sitting across a portrait painted from glass. It was in a small side room, in a hallway separated from all the main exhibits. The portrait was of a man he didn’t know, but he briefly considered what that man must be feeling. Would he hate me? Would he like me? What would I say to him if I saw him in public? The portrait’s glassy eyes stared back, they stared straight into him as if to say,
“you already know the answer.”
He suddenly felt uncomfortable, and decided to leave. He decided that that was enough time spent at the museum, he should go home. No, I can’t go back home, he said aloud, I shouldn’t. I’ll go somewhere else. I’ll walk into town. And do what? Spend money you don’t have? Sit around for an hour? It’s always nice just walking, don’t you think? There’s nothing wrong with that.
So that’s what he decided to do. The only problem being, since he pretty much drifted around with his mind drowning in a fugue state for a few hours, he had no idea where he was, and had no idea how to get out of the museum. Everything looked unfamiliar and foreign. Streets with no names and buildings that stared back in words he didn’t understand like postmodernism, impressionism and expressionism. Sure, when someone says it you pretend to know what they mean, but you never actually cared enough to look into it. Paintings tend to know when you’re lying.
Finally. The exit. He heard the entire room whispering to each other about him, and he wondered what he did to deserve the ridicule. His mind went blank, and the walls closed in again.
Did he go on that walk into town? Who knows, certainly not him. He just found himself at his desk, thinking about how tired he was getting. Did he receive a message from one of his friends? Did he eat? Did he do anything? Does he do anything?
-Nathan Balk King, ’23