Bored.
He whistled tunes, paced, twirled his ring of keys around on his finger, admired the artwork, and played on his phone until it died.
Still bored.
He sighed and leaned his head back against the rolling chair, oscillating back and forth until his head spun.
He glanced at the screens before him. No movement on the cameras; never any movement on the cameras.
He closed his eyes and went still, the silence of the museum weighing heavy. Any sound. Music, white noise, anything, and maybe he could rest. But not with the silence. Not when her voice bubbled to the surface.
It started with a whisper. A word. Something easily written off as a breath of wind or a thought so strong it tricked his ears.
Then more whispers. Sentences. Laughter. Too many sounds to ignore. All her voice. All her laughter. All her.
He grit his teeth and rubbed at his watering eyes. He buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“I don’t know what to do without you.”
He’d taken this job weeks ago when the savings ran dry and the bills needed paying. Daytime labor didn’t work. He barely functioned when the sun peeked over the horizon. The light was too bright; too warm. The sounds were too loud, the smells too strong.
The silence didn’t fair much better, but at least at night, it was him and whatever vice he chose to distract himself. Nobody would bother him, and as far as he was concerned, it was better that way.
The night shift was his only chance at putting microwave dinners on the table. When the museum announced they were hiring overnight security guards, he scraped himself from the bedroom floor, freshened his breath with a fistful of mints, showered for the first time in days, and drug himself to the interview. Somehow, they’d given him the job. Either they were stupid or desperate. It didn’t matter. He had the job, and he paid the bills. Barely.
The world held a cruel irony the way a knife held a tipped point. Maybe it wanted to guide him. Or maybe it wanted to laugh at him. He was indifferent to its motivations and schemes.
She’d always promised she’d have an art piece in this museum one day. He believed her. She’d drug him through most art museums, admiring piece after piece, pointing out intricacies he was too blind to see. But her smile was so warm, and her eyes so bright, he didn’t care. He would’ve traveled through every art gallery and museum in the world to see that smile every day.
The only art he liked was hers. Even as he walked the halls of the museum his first few nights at this job, they all paled in comparison to her paintings at home. The colors were all dull, the shapes out of place, the passion nothing more than a flicker. Hers was a roaring flame. She would stare at a blank canvas for hours, thinking and daydreaming. She’d start with a hesitant stroke of the brush, questioning if it was the right move.
The moment the brush touched the canvas, she didn’t stop. Not for food, not for water, not for sleep. She hesitated to start, then refused to finish. She’d always signed her name at the bottom corner, Marcy, in a different style every time. She said she was practicing for the signature she wrote under her masterpiece. To him, they were all masterpieces.
Always, the art stole his breath. Robbed him of words. He just stared and admired, then kissed her paint-covered cheeks and reminded her that one day, someday, she would have a piece of hers in a museum.
It never happened.
It never would now.
Her last contribution to art was an unfinished painting that sat in her office. A woman with a piercing gaze, only half done. Marcy struggled with what color she wanted to use for that one. He’d locked the door and never went in after her funeral. He couldn’t.
He removed his face from his hands and drained the rest of his coffee in his thermos, then scanned the cameras again.
A flicker of movement caught his eyes. His vision blurred from lack of sleep, and he rubbed his eyes. He looked again, but nothing was there. No movement. Just a figment of his wild imagination.
But then a glimmer of movement on another camera caught his attention.
He stared at the cameras, not blinking, waiting until another flash of movement darted past the camera’s cone of vision.
“What the hell…” he muttered to himself, blinking, then rubbing his eyes. It wouldn’t be a person, not with how fast it evaded the cameras. An animal?
He sat frozen in his chair, his mind racing. Should he investigate? Leave it alone? It was probably nothing… but if it was an intruder and he did nothing, he’d lose his job. He couldn’t let that happen.
He swore and stepped out of the dark camera room, flashlight in hand. The light shined a beacon into the hallway. He hesitated, then eased down the hall, scanning for movement as he patrolled the area where it originated.
None of the paintings were missing. The alarm hadn’t gone off. He stopped and thumbed his flashlight. He was seeing things. Lack of sleep and too much coffee. Just jitters.
He would’ve chuckled if he thought he could anymore, then returned to the camera room. But as his hand rested on the knob, a figure stood illuminated in a trace of moonlight down the hall. He froze.
Swift and graceful, the figure slipped from around the corner.
“Hey!” he called, running without thinking.
He rounded the corner just in time to see the figure disappear behind another. He followed, out of breath already. One too many donuts, one too many cigarettes at night.
He kept going, shouting for the figure to stop, glancing at the walls for any sign of missing paintings. He rounded another corner. A door clicked shut down the hall. It led to the stairwell.
He sprinted to the door and scrambled up the stairs. When he reached the top, he stumbled through the door and almost fell to his hands and knees. His panted breaths turned to wheezes, and the figure leaned casually against a metal duct, staring out at the city.
“Evening, officer,” said the voice, low and tilting, like waves on a shore. A woman’s voice. She chuckled as he regained his breath. She was toying with him. Why? “Lovely night for a stroll.”
“Who are you?” he panted out, stepping closer to her. “What did you take?”
She wore a dark outfit, with a black mask and hood covering her features. She raised her hands in surrender and stepped closer to the edge of the roof. “As you can clearly see, I haven’t taken a thing.”
He glanced around the rooftop. She could have easily hidden a painting anywhere. She was fast enough to remain nothing but a shadow on the cameras. “Why did you lead me up here?”
A shrug. “I wanted to see you one last time.”
He froze. “What?”
She gave a lazy wave and let herself fall.
“Wait!” he ran to the edge and looked down, her body nowhere to be seen. “How in the…” he scanned the ground below, then the street beyond. She’d disappeared. Like a ghost. Or a wraith.
Breathless, he stumbled back, scraping his hand on the coarse concrete. He stared at the edge as if expecting her to reappear. He considered calling the authorities, but what would he do? Tell them a figure escaped into thin air with no paintings on her.
He clambered to his feet and dashed back down the stairs, searching the halls for any missing paintings. Each hall he scanned revealed nothing missing. He ran a hand through his greasy hair. Did he hallucinate her? Was he really that sleep-deprived? He reached for his pocket, but no cigarettes awaited him. What he wouldn’t do for a puff or ten. Anything to take the edge off.
When he finished the search, he scoffed. Not a single painting missing. Maybe it was just a college kid. A prank gone wrong. Or maybe the thief hadn’t had time to grab anything. He rubbed his still tired eyes and trudged back to the camera room, promising himself to never smoke or eat fried foods again. He knew it was a lie, but it felt good to think it.
He pushed open the camera room door and stepped in.
He stiffened. His legs turned to jelly and he fell to his knees. The breath left his lungs like he’d been punched in the stomach.
A painting stood before him, leaned against the wall. Carefully, precisely, as if whoever had put it there took all the time they needed. No rush.
The breath wouldn’t return to his lungs. Goosebumps raised along his skin. He covered his mouth as tears streamed down his face.
It was her painting. The one she never finished. Now complete.
The woman, awash in blue, stared at him with tired eyes.
A name was written carefully at the bottom.
“Marcy,” he said, a sob choking him.
He shook his head, then ducked his head into his knees, sobs spilling from him. He couldn’t raise his head to look at the painting again.
It couldn’t have been her. It couldn’t have been.
But some part of him knew.
“Marcy,” he said again, struggling to let the word out. He’d called her name out so many times since her funeral, knowing she would never respond. Would never hear him.
But she could now.
It was her.
His Marcy.
How did this happen?
He crawled to the painting and touched its soft surface. He needed to know how she was here. He had to find her. He wiped the tears from his eyes and swore it to himself.
He would find her.
No matter what.
And as he beheld the painting, he knew where to look first.
A.K. Rohner 