This is a fun story that developed when brainstorming Egypt Calling with Paul. In his story, a huge statue of Ramses II disappears. In mine, things are far less dramatic. It is just that life is very confusing if you find yourself alive, standing on a plinth in a museum. Especially if you haven’t been alive before.
I will occasionally post a chapter here since I think we all need a bit of distraction every now and then. And perhaps it makes us sympathize with the artworks in our exhibitions – and everybody else in there.
Chapter 1 – Boring
Boring.
That was what it was.
Standing on a plinth in the middle of the room, being lit by colorful lights and looked at by people was just boring.
It had taken him three times to realize it.
Three times of people leaving, the lights being switched off, the doors being locked, the doors being unlocked, the lights being switched on again, and the people coming back in.
But now, he knew it for sure:
This was boring.
Now the question was: what could he do about it?
He didn’t know much about himself. He knew that he was marble. The second kind of people said so.
As far as he had observed, there were three kinds of people:
There were those who came in and looked at him. Then, there were those who came in, barely looked at him, but then pointed with their fingers at him and told the looking kind of people stuff about him. And finally, there were those people who just stood or sat in a corner. They scowled at everybody and barked orders at the first kind of people.
Usually they shouted that people shouldn’t touch his butt.
Not that he minded that. At least people interacted with him. It was far better than just being stared at as if something was wrong with him.
Although…some of the looking kind of people not even really looked at him.
They turned their back on him and then, they held up small rectangle things that showed a small version of him and the faces of the people. People giggled when they did that. He didn’t understand what was funny about it.
People, in general, were very odd.
But he was digressing.
So, he was marble. He had no idea what that meant but it sounded good. Solid, somehow.
But what did it mean, being marble? Did it mean he couldn’t do anything but standing on a plinth in the middle of a room and being stared at?
From all he had seen when looking at himself on people’s little rectangle things, he looked a lot like people. Hands, feet, tummy, all was there. He was just larger.
8 feet.
That was what the pointing people always told the staring people. He looked at his right foot—which was easy to do since it was below him, directly in his line of sight—and did a rough estimate. If he imagined placing one foot in front of the other and doing that eight times… yes, yes, it could be that this was his height.
Wait.
Could he actually do that? Place one foot in front of the other?
For now, he had never tried to move.
Ever since he had become aware of himself—he didn’t know how many times the light had been turned off and on since then, but it had been a while—he just stood here and observed his surroundings. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he could actually move. Standing on a plinth just seemed like…the natural and decent thing to do.
But it was boring. He had established that. It was boring. And so, perhaps he should try something new?
Carefully he lifted the big toe of his right foot. It rose from the plinth without effort.
“Mom, Mom, the statue is wiggling its toe!” someone shouted.
It was one of those small people. Sometimes the big, staring people were accompanied by small versions of themselves. They were much more fun than the big ones. They ran around and laughed and touched things. And then the other, grim-looking people shouted at them and had serious words with some of the big people.
“Sure it did, dear. And now, come here, we want to see the installation in the next room,” a large one replied. Someone with long hair, a flowery dress, and an annoyed expression. Mom, he assumed.
“But, Mom! I saw it. Look!” The little person had come close.
He set his toe on the plinth again. It seemed it was at least something extraordinary to do and he didn’t want one of the grim-looking people come over and shout at him. He would try some more of this moving things when the lights were switched off again.
A frown of profound thoughts crinkled the little person’s forehead. Then they reached out with their tiny hand and touched his toe. Like always when people did that, it felt strange. Warm. Not at all uncomfortable. Just a bit…not like his toe usually felt.
“How many times have I told you not to touch the art?” Mom yelled, grabbed the hand of the little person and pulled them away.
Before they both disappeared through the door to the next room, the little one turned around once more, gave him another frown, and then, they smiled and winked at him.
And before he knew it, he moved one eyelid and winked back.
So, he was art.
He had assumed as much since somehow he heard that term a lot around here. He was marble and he was art. That at least was something he could cling to.
He contemplated what art could be and why people were not allowed to touch art although it felt nice. He did that until all people left the room, the doors were locked, and the lights went out.
Then, he resumed wiggling his toe. When he felt comfortable doing that, he removed his whole left foot from the plinth. It didn’t take any effort. He set it down again and lifted his right foot. That didn’t work.
He gave it a long thought why it was different. Perhaps because his weight rested on his right foot? He slowly put more weight on his left foot and then tried again.
That did it. Now he could lift his right foot.
Good. For some time he just did that. Lifted his right foot, set it down again, shifted his weight, lifted the left foot. Yes, that was like it. He could even imagine walking forward like people did. He needed to try!
He lifted his left foot and instead of setting it down again he took a big step forward.
The next thing he heard was a loud crash, he wasn’t standing upright anymore, and he had a very detailed view of the mosaic on the floor.
“Sorry,” he said to the multifaceted face of a woman riding a deer. For the first time heard how his voice sounded. And he realized that he could speak. It sounded a bit rough. Perhaps gravely? This was probably how marble sounded.
The woman on the deer, however, remained silent.
Perhaps she was still shocked or perhaps she just wasn’t the talkative type. And someone just falling onto you was for sure not the best way to make an introduction.
Besides, he had no idea what his name was so could hardly introduce himself.
He probably should focus on the more basic things first.
He cautiously shifted his limbs. Feet to stand on. Hands and arms to push upright and balance the body. It wasn’t very complicated, he just wasn’t used to it. He rose to his feet again and made a few steps. It was easy. Why had he fallen onto the floor in the first place?
He looked back at the plinth. Oh, of course. Not the same level. He had to pay attention to the height difference in things.
Nothing hurt, but he imagined that the grim-looking people were not in favor of him falling into things. He probably should avoid meeting those people altogether while he was walking around. If they freaked out at someone simply touching his butt they were probably not very fond of finding that butt not in its usual place.
But the grim-looking people that were so obsessed with his lower backside weren’t here, now, so he could do as he pleased.
He walked around the room until he felt confident on his feet. Then he approached the door.
“Caution. Alarm system active,” a big, friendly, green writing informed him.
He remembered that once an alarm had gone off because one of the little people had opened a wrong door. It was very loud. He hadn’t liked that at all, so he didn’t touch the door.
Instead, he wandered around the room. “Renaissance and Contemporary Art,” a big text panel said but when he started reading, it became confusing and boring so he decided it was written for someone else. Someone who wasn’t marble.
There was a lot of texts to read everywhere. It seemed all the things in the room had little labels with a lot of letters on them. He got curious and read the one on his own plinth.
Leonardo DiMontici
Reinvention of a naked Greek athlete as dreamed about on the 6th of January 1972
Marble, 7 feet 3 inches (2.2 meters)
1986
So, this was who he was?
Leonardo DiMontici?
Good to know. So, not only he had now confirmed he was marble, he also had a name. Leonardo. Sounded nice. And he wasn’t 8 feet tall, just 7 feet and a few inches. He wondered if he should be disappointed about that but couldn’t think of a reason. He also found nothing that looked like inches on his body, so he just memorized everything written on the label and moved on.
He tried to speak to a few other pieces which were probably also art, just not marble, but none of them seemed interested in a conversation. They didn’t react in any way although he always read the labels and addressed them with their names.
Perhaps he was the only art thing that could move and speak?
That sounded boring. And lonely.
He wondered if there was a way to leave the room without going through the door. He was really curious how the rest of this place looked and if perhaps in other rooms there were others like him.
Perhaps he could sneak out in the early morning, when the grim-looking people left the room to do whatever they had to do after they switched all the lights on?
That was a plan.
Very satisfied with himself he, Leonardo DiMontici, 7 feet 3 inches of marble art, climbed on his plinth again and resumed his original posture.
He just needed to stand and wait.
And marble art was very good at that.
