Hiding from the Shadows

Chapter 5

In the morning I fill Saar in on last night's occurrences. Despite how horribly it ended, he's pretty happy with it. I think.

The day goes by pretty quickly. I have a shift at Uptown Coffee that lasts most of the day, but afterwards I decide to go to the only place I've found in this busy city that can clear my mind: the museum.

I love going to the several different museums Glawridge has, but my favorite is the Glawridge Museum of Art. The exhibits don't change a lot, but seeing the familiar paintings and other art pieces brings me comfort.

I pay the admission fee and enter the museum, slowly weaving my way through the exhibits. I normally come at the time of day when the museum doesn't get a lot of visitors, but today I didn't come at its quietest hour. There are quite a few people milling about, oohing and aahing over the art. Not as quiet as I normally like it, but manageable.

I find my way to one of my favorite places. It's a small corner of the museum, and at first glance it looks like a slapdash exhibit, many different mediums of art carelessly thrown together with no obvious similarity. All of the eclectic pieces were made by Glawridge's own Ana Nofta, an artist who made many beautiful pieces, though could never decide which medium she liked best. She died almost ten years ago, but her artwork is one of the most alive things I've ever seen.

This is one of my favorite places because it not only has many miscellaneous pieces to sketch, but not many people come to this out-of-the-way exhibit by an almost unrecognizable artist. A few people are currently wandering through, but none of them stay long. The pieces are truly beautiful for their simplicity, which is not very popular among the general public.

I sit on one of the wooden benches that are scattered throughout the museum and start to sketch a sculpture that caught my eye the very first time I came here. This wooden statue is titled My Heart's Cage. It depicts a woman kneeling and crying in the center, holding her heart in her hands. Her literal heart, not symmetrical emoji that's come to symbolize love. Anyways. Twisted black metal is pouring out of her heart, and just before it reaches the bottom, it swoops up and around to make a sort of cage around the woman. Her eyes aren't looking at her heart, but instead are staring out of the cage with longing.

I understand Lucy perfectly (I call the wooden woman Lucy in my head. She just looks like a Lucy). Her own heart is protecting her from what she so desperately wants, maybe even needs. It's saving her from the cruelties out there while also deriving her of the joy of living. And the contrast of the black metal against the soft wood really is ingenious.

I know that I'm doing the same thing to myself everyday as Lucy is doing to herself. That I'm trapped in a cage of my own creation. But even if I wanted to, I don't know if I could bring myself to break through my walls. If I did, I would be breaking my heart and myself along with them.

Dammit, the museum always makes me soft.

I'm attempting to draw Lucy's eyes — I always have difficulty drawing her eyes. They are so complex with all the emotions that are held in them — when somebody says my name.

"Dae?" I turn around and am surprised to see Logan. He's wearing a dark green t-shirt that reads "I'm a theatre kid, deal with it".

"Hey," I say, setting my pencil down and turning a little on the bench.

"What are you doing here?" He sounds a bit shocked. I gesture to My Heart's Cage.

"Enjoying the art. You?"

"Same." He shakes his head a little and gives me a half smile. "Sorry. I just didn't expect to see you here. Took me by surprise I guess."

"That's fine. I'm kinda surprised to see you here too." He shuffles back and forth a little before pointing to the empty space on the bench next to me.