Random Mutterings

The Exhibit

It was one of those things,  

I heard from a friend,  who heard it from a friend,

of a friend,

of a friend.....

There was an old museum in town, and if you paid the janitor $50 he would take you to the basement, where there was a secret room, a secret exhibit.

A secret...

I'm board,  I love art, what's the big secret?

No one knows, no one I know has gone.

Is it true? 

I have to know...

I walk up the crumbling steps to the old museum. At the top an old man in tan coveralls is trying to screw a gold sign into the old concrete on the side of the building. A pile of dust gathers on his sleeve.

I'm nervous, excited... 

"The special exhibit?" I ask when I get close to him.

"Sí, Sí" he says smiling and waves me towards the front doors before going back to his work.

I'm disappointed, he's obviously not the janitor I need to talk to. Maybe the story was just a story after all. I go through the front doors and the cold air, with it's perfectly controlled humidity hits me. I shiver, put my hands in my jean pockets, feel the warm neatly folded $50 resting there.

In the first gallery the walls are filled with beautiful paintings, statues dot the center of the room. A broom is resting against one wall. A man in blue coveralls stands looking at a painting. Feeling determined I walk across the room, pulling my $50 from it's warm cocoon and thrust it out towards the man as I go.

"I'd like to see the special exhibit" I say to his back.

He turns, his blue eyes find mine, then find the $50 I'm holding out in front of me.  He takes the $50 and tucks it into the pocket of his coveralls, where the name Scott is embroidered in bright white letters.

It must be true! My heart skips a beat and I'm not sure if it's from excitement, or because the blue eyes are looking at mine again. The man smiles, does one of those 'come with me' motions with his head, it tousles his sandy hair. He turns to lead me deeper into the museum. As I'm following his broad back I'm thinking even if the 'special exhibit' it's nude photos of hot janitor man, I come out ahead.

He leads me through a door marked  "employees only", we go past empty offices before coming to another door. When he opens this one the smell of dust waifs out, and before us is a dimly lit stairway. This part of the museum is old, 

authentic

not for public eyes..... 

The stairs lead to a dusky hallway. I comment on the dimness and he tells me its better for the artwork. In the middle of the hall the man turns and opens another door,

 "in here he says." holding it open for me.

 It's inky black inside and I can't see what lays beyond.

"Can't turn the lights on until your inside" his hair tousles again as he makes a vague nod back towards the hall, and I have to resist the urge to reach up and brush it out of his blue eyes. "Have to turn them on at the panel, it's the big revel"  He flashes me a wide smile and I return it doing  a flirty little hair flip of my own as I slide past him into the dark room.

"Ok" I say

Excitedly I go several steps in trying to get a look at what's in the darkness but the sliver of dim light coming through the door is shrinking and the door clicks shut behind me. The excitement is like electricity.

What is here?

Is it priceless? Has it been stolen? Why is it kept in the dark?

The thought of nude photos of the hot janitor skips across my mind again and a little giggle escapes. It sounds so small that I think the room must be huge. The anticipation is like a pressure in my chest...

Is it a painting? The most beautiful painting that anyone has ever seen? I try and visualize all the long lost paintings I have only seen in books, wondering if it might be one of them. 

Is it an elegant sculpture? I imagine a ballerina cast in stone and frozen forever in the most graceful of poses.

Maybe it will be one of those photographs, that capture a moment so powerful that it reaches out through time and makes you cry.

Maybe it's all of these things, maybe it's even more. My mind is dizzy with possibility as wait for the reveal.

and I wait,

wait

wait......

excitement fades,

a stirring of impatience,

"Hello?" I call into the darkness, the sound echoes and bounces back to me.

No answer.

"Hello?" I call again, louder this time, the impatience beginning to burn. I wonder where the janitor is. A tiny worry nibbles at me and I imagine him tripping and breaking his neck on the dimly lit stairs. Sighing loudly I turn around, hands waving around in front of me I wade back through the darkness in search of the door.

In about five steps I find the wall. Carefully, so as not to knock of any artwork that might be on the walls I start searching with my hands. Trying to feel for the door. I know it can't be to far off, I slide along the wall to my right. Waving my hands as I go,

feeling,

feeling......

Nothing.

"Hello?" I yell this time, the worry bubbles "HELLO!" I start pounding the walls with my fists.

Where did that guy go? I think back to the  way he smiled and looked at me as I walked past him through the door and an ominous shudder goes through me. I'm wondering if he even really worked here. Why did he have blue coveralls and not tan ones like the guy working outside? I remember the story about the lady who went missing from the mall last week, had they found her yet?

Was she dead?

Was she sold into sex slavery?

"Fuck" I say resting my head against the empty wall "I'm so stupid"

I begin wondering what I'm locked into this room with. A cold surgical table,

knives,

saws,

ropes,

duct tape.....

I can feel the coldness of it all washing against my skin.

I pound the walls harder. "get me out of here!!!"  I scream.

The lights come on.

I blink,

squinting I turn and look over my shoulder into the room behind me,

it's empty...

Far to my left the door opens. The man leans through the door frame, his cold blue eyes find mine "there you are" he says when he sees me. "How'd you like the exhibit?" He smiles his creepy smile and I rush past him back into the hall and start towards the steps.

"What exhibit?" I snap, "there's nothing there!"  

"Not when the lights are on"  comes the mans distant reply.

.....................................................................................................

Later : in a dusky hallway in the basement of an old museum an elderly janitor walks to an electric panel. He pushes a switch and the lights in the hall hum as they brighten. He grabs a broom from a nearby closet and sweeps the hall floor. Passing the door in the exact center of the hall he stops to straighten the small dark exhibit sign.  It reads "Exhibit : Alone In The Dark, By Scott Woods"