Lou (Part 2)

Against his will, Lou was forced by his parents into the museum of his past and current feelings—a place located below his chin, and above his crotch. A place where everything could be touched, and what academics considered intangible was tangible to everyday people. Not to say academics aren't people every day; there are just some days when their heads are so far up their ass that they miss the sunset, where the past and present meet on Tuesday afternoons, or at least that's what Lou thought, waiting outside on the steps amongst those on their lunch break, or reading beside pigeon shit. Lou didn’t care for reading; he was 22, pale, and wore all black. His lifetime pass was a badge around his neck, and he was always alone when he entered the museum, because that was how he felt in here.

Giant paintings hung on the walls, and modern art was piled in corners, waiting to be swept into the mouths that craved something to talk about, and all the artwork would come out in disguise. Friends, family, and lovers might think it was an opinionated conversation, but it was just city vomit.

He entered the Joy wing of his own museum, where countless images of the same expression caught at different angles hung. In Grief, he mourned his Grandfather, and it was the only place in the museum where Lou’s name was on the wall, having donated a hefty sum of tears to the infrastructure that could also be considered his foundation by those who mixed the concrete. This wing was always under construction, and it fascinated Lou. The art in Grief was the best, and it was in this part of his museum that he saw other members of his family, but they were always leaving with someone he had never seen before. Usually, they were holding flowers, and his younger cousins were beating each other with them.

In The Modern Wing, he saw how happy others were through the different perspectives his life has held, written in little boxes beside the works of art. He read each curated description of what, why, and how an old or new perspective formed during the good times, and why there might be bad times. He touched these little descriptions, and they were always cold, like he thought marble might feel like.

In Memory, he got lost. It was as if he were walking in circles, and familiar faces often helped Lou from one room to the next. He could never remember who to thank at the next exit sign, and when he asked for their name, they would throw a fit. When Lou apologized, they said it was ok and asked him if they wanted their tour headphones. He’d put them on, and it was just what the therapist repeated that morning, so he’d remove them. The audio tour was the only part of the museum he had to pay for. If he kept his headphones on long enough, his therapist would ask for his debit card information.

Lou liked the abstract artists who chose good color, and the realists who caught the subject exactly as it was, especially if they were painted in the right light and cast a large, deep shadow, which more often than not resembled the subject with a surreal quality that an abstract artist could only dream of.

After an hour, and deep in the museum, it somehow got quieter despite being the only person he could see, and as he walked into an unlit room with a projector, he took a seat on a long bench, and a film began to play. It was just a farm boy, in overalls and a checkered long-sleeve shirt, jumping off a stack of hay, repeatedly in slow motion. The last thing you saw before the eight-second clip started over was the boy closing his eyes as he landed, and bits of wheat floated in slow motion around him. His first thought was, “Who was this child?” Because even though the film stock was really up to date and looked good, Lou could tell this was filmed long ago, and that the boy was most likely dead.

Lou sat for a long time, and the only sound was the projector, until it turned off, and the room lights turned on. He looked back and jumped at the sight of this old man who resembled a hawk, with glazed-over baby-blue eyes and a smile that said, “I know more than you do.”

Though it looked malicious, it could have also passed for someone suppressing a lot of pleasure, and that’s who he said he was: Pleasure, the expert, the curator of Lou’s museum. He asked what Lou thought of the film.

“A bit repetitious,” he said.

There was confidence in Lou’s voice, but he was very conscious of that.

“Isn’t everything repeating?” asked Pleasure, who still had not shown his hands that had been behind his back. Behind his black, leather trenchcoat.

“No,” said Lou.

“What isn’t? I’m dying to know.”

“Music.”

“There are only twelve keys.”

“Clothing.”

“Everything is taken from somewhere; it’s just about how well you can make it your own.”

“Is that what you think about art?”

“It’s what I think of Joy, Grief, Memory, Love, & Time. You never bother to go into the wings, do you?”

“Which ones?”

“Love & Time. Where I live.”

“You live in my museum?”

“Of course. Everything here does.”

Pleasure's voice lowered to a trickle, his blue eyes were turning grey, and like his thin, red mouth, had gotten wetter.

“Care to join me in Time? We can have some wine and talk about things.”

“Why can’t we talk here?”

“Because there is no wine. I’m inviting you to have some wine.”

He closed his eyes, and Lou saw it. He was the boy in the video, now an older gentleman in leather, with bags under his eyes and a little tan flap hanging off his jawbone like a dog.

“I won’t make you do anything.”

“You’re not Pleasure.”

“Touche. I am Chance, the bridge between Love & Time, and sometimes I am up, sometimes I’m down, sometimes I’m something you can only walk halfway.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because, during the best of times, someone meets you halfway.”

The lights in the room went out, and the repeating clip played on. The boy closed his eyes and was caught before he landed on a rusted nail by his own older arms. When he opened them, he screamed at his future self, still out of view, except for his old arms. There is an expression that this boy is being stolen from somebody, and that Chance will do his best to make him his own.