The Dream Factory

The Museum

The Museum 

It was more, much more than she'd ever expected, this place of myths and legends. At one time she'd doubted, and then hoped, despite herself, that it could be real. The thought of it's existence both horrified and enthralled her.  

Yet it was true. This strange and miraculous place did exist, full of the mystifying, curious, haunting and magically otherworldly creatures of her dreams.  

The first exhibit. An Angel. It stood tall and proud, an ethereal radiance emanating from its eerily translucent body. Its hair of incandescent shimmering gold hung in long curls over a transparent white skin that glistened with sparkles of dazzling light.  

As she approached it looked upon her with its breathtaking beauty and revealed a pair of gossamer thin wings, slowly unfurling them until they spread in plumes of divine pallidity, their feathered edges almost touching each side of the booth. Then the seraph gently tipped its lucent head to her.  

She stepped back, covering her face to hide her embarrassment and made her best attempt to bow back. Then feeling clumsy and foolish she stumbled off down the corridor drawn by the anticipation of the curiosities that lay beyond.  

Through the shadows past the subtly lit displays she wondered bewitched by the figures behind the glowing screens. Strange cloaked Magi, pale skinned aliens with blue eyes and forked tongues, odd unfathomable creatures whose purpose she could not understand. Some strangely alluring, others horribly ugly. The proud ones stood in their displays staring out with an air of hopeful expectation. Whilst others, huddled in corners greeted her only with sad melancholy looks of despair.  

Then to a small creature which gazed at her through its pearl moon eyes. An inconsequential thing next to all these other spectacular beings. Sitting close to the screen it raised its three digits to the glass and beckoned for her to do the same.  

She placed her hand over his and her mind flooded with images. A landscape so surreal she could not believe it could be real appeared before her. Fields of tall grass suffused with flaming colours, stark lakes of languid orange stillness. She was running and laughing, pushing her three fingered hand through the rushes on the lake foreshore, feeling the warm breeze racing over her skin. She was shouting to her friends who skipped and jumped around her. Then they stopped and tilted their faces upward to see the dark blots of outlandishly shaped ships appear in the silver blue sky above them. And then a sensation of darkness, anguish, despair and loneliness crept into her mind and overwhelmed her senses.  

She quickly withdrew her hand, her soul stung by this unexpected wretchedness. Then drawn by the sounds from the next booth she slowly turned and walked away.  

A silver quadruped, whether live or mechanical she could not tell stood in front of a bell hung frame. Its long elegant fingers ran with dizzying speed over the fragile crystal shells. The crystals threw out canticles of strange haunting notes that hung in the air and filled her head with celestial harmonies she could never have imagined existed. An transcendent haunting sound that made her want to cry then laugh. For a moment it stopped playing and turned its eyeless head to her and then turning away, played on.  

In the next cubicle a creature with a long domed head in burnished robes of Cimmerian blackness motioned her to pick the golden fruit in front of her. She placed it carefully in the trap door in the glass and it reached in and picked it out. Then in a swift movement it threw it up and clapped its hands and the fruit disappeared into the air.  

She looked around surprised and stood back. Then seeing it had re-appeared in the display in front of her she clapped her hands in delight.  

And it, mimicking her, clapped its.  

She ran breathlessly through the museum, jumping with delight at each display which was more strange and entrancing than the last.  

When she approached the last display it was with trepidation. Her heart beat furiously against her chest, caught in a mixture of fear and anticipation of what was to come.  

It was a man on a tall chair reading a book. His body embossed in a chaos of raven black symbols. Strange and alien they appeared to her, a confusion of disturbing scripts suggesting a foreboding darkness that existed far off in another unworldly place. As his eyes scanned the pages letters rose in his skin and raced across his chest. Like the flowing hand of an invisible tattooist they appeared black and inky under his skin to crystallise in a long flowing script over his body before gently fading away to nothing.  

The illustrated man, sensing her closeness lifted his patterned face from his book, raised one hand and smiled.  

She placed her hand on the glass and held it there and hoped the moment would last forever.  

Reluctantly she turned from him and saw the last booth was empty. Then she knew her visit was over. She would never wander these halls again and be captured by their wonder. Never again revel in the disbelief of their spellbinding displays.  

Then they took her to her place.  

And when she had halted the trembling in her body and wiped the stinging tears from her face she opened her eyes and looked up.  

The multitude of faces of the crowd pressed up against the glass looked back. Opened mouthed, wide eyed.  

Staring in awe of her.