Page 10 of The Art of Vanishing

Claire

My feet hit the ground beneath the frame harder than I anticipated, like I was quite literally crashing back to reality.

I was still reeling from the past hour. Had I fallen, slipped on a puddle of soapy water, and slammed my head on the bench?

Was this a hallucination, the early symptoms of a concussion?

At least I had real health insurance for the first time in forever.

I took a chance and looked back over my shoulder and there he was, Jean, standing up, out of his chair, looking back at me.

My new friend, I guessed you could call him.

He was smiling and lifted his hand into a small wave.

I returned it, feeling a wave of shyness rush over me.

I couldn’t remember a time when someone had ever just watched me the way he was doing now.

Not waiting for anything, not expecting anything, just watching me because he could.

It was sweet but activated my self-consciousness and suddenly, I needed to get out of there. But first, I had to do my job.

When I was done cleaning, I rushed over to my cart and rolled out of the room, giving Jean another little nod goodbye.

As soon as I cleared the doorway, I hurried to the nearest corner I could find and sank down into a crouch.

I just needed a moment, just a moment to figure out what the heck just happened and how I felt about it. If it had actually happened.

My fingers roamed the fabric of the sleeves of my uniform, my arms crossed over my chest. A few days ago, I’d been upgraded to the proper size; they had to order it specially for me and I guessed I had lasted long enough for them to go ahead and do so.

I was small, notably so. I had been my entire life.

I had never fit into anything that fit anyone else.

Pinnies they handed out in gym class hung on me like a dress.

Most of the time, I had hated it. It was hard to feel like I’d ever measureup.

But I could fit into just about any space.

It came in handy—reaching my hand behind a piece of furniture to grab dropped keys, slipping under the bed to find a rogue sock, or in that moment, sliding my body in between the cart and the wall, creating a place where I could be alone.

Except, as I looked up at the wall above me, heavy with art, I realized I’d never truly be alone in this place.

The people in the paintings overhead paid me no mind; they continued on about their evenings as if I wasn’t having a mental breakdown and questioning my own sanity in their midst. The painting to my right was on a much smaller scale than Jean’s living room but, if I was looking for it, I could still see the movements of their tiny arms, the clinking of their miniature wineglasses, the shaking of their heads.

I stared at them, a little lost in the wonder of it all, until I remembered why I was sitting there.

The way I saw it, there were two options.

The first was that something was very, very wrong with my brain because this wasn’t just a moment of hallucination, a daydream gone absolutely rampant, in which I had convinced myself I’d been inside a painting and gone for a walk with its subject.

Maybe it was some kind of imbalance. Too much coffee today, not enough sleep, I’d been too close to the cleaning chemicals.

No, it wasn’t as simple as that, because as I sat there on the floor, I was sure that I was still noticing changes and movement in all the art around me. And if I was honest, I’d been seeing it for weeks.

So that led me to option two: that I was right.

That everything I had just experienced was real, that these paintings were alive in their own way and that I had a—seemingly—unique ability to visit them.

I only said unique because if there were other people who could do this, wouldn’t we know?

Wouldn’t everyone be talking about it? Wouldn’t art take on a whole new place in society, not just as something quarantined on the walls of museums but as narrators of history?

Watchers of time? Did I have to tell someone about my discovery?

“Holy shit,” I whispered as my mind spun with the possibilities.

And just as quickly as that window of thought opened, I shut it again.

Just as I’d said to Jean, I knew I could never tell anyone about this.

They would only see the first option, that I was unstable and potentially insane.

And what if they thought I’d be a danger to the art? They’d never let me back in here.

That could be the end of everything. What if I could only do this here, in this museum?

Was there something special about this place?

Before I’d started working here, I’d come to visit just once before, as a kid on that field trip.

Did this have to do with that? No, I could never tell anyone who had anything to do with this museum.

And would anyone in my life outside the museum even care?

I thought about what it would be like to try to convince them, of their reactions, of the way they could make me feel small.

I cleared that train of thought from my head.

I needed this job too much. Our landlord had let us know earlier in the week that the rent would be going up again, the third year in a row.

I’d spent the last three days doing the math and we could afford it, barely, but we couldn’t handle another gap in my employment.

Not right now, before I’d had a chance to set anything aside.

This would be my little secret, I decided.

Well, mine and Jean’s, of course. I felt something when I thought about him, a hint of embarrassment, maybe.

A flush in my cheeks, a slight racing of my heart.

He had been so warm, so easy to be with.

And so different from anyone I’d ever met.

We shared none of the same worries of the world.

For the hour we’d spent together, I’d forgotten about all the things that usually fog my brain.

I’d just been happy to be there, talking to someone new, learning little bits and pieces about him, looking into his steady brown eyes.

“Oh my god,” I said aloud. “Do I actually have a… crush ?” The woman in the painting above me looked down at me, a little twinkle in her eye. She raised her glass. I forgot they could hear me. I groaned and checked my watch. It was just past midnight and there was still work that had to get done.