UM(1) Creative Writing Club (Activity)

Hayley Faye

Everything around me hushed as I walked in. The atmosphere stilled and filled with thick tension. I stood there sensing the unfamiliarity of it all and waited for Amelie to escort me to my room as they had told me on the phone.

"Hello? I'm Michael. I'm here for a new position that has opened recently in this place?" I said after a moment or two of loud silence.

A bird chirped loudly.

Wow, this place even has nature stimulators, I thought to myself. Not many spas I used to work in had that.

The bird chirped loudly again. But someone shushed it this time.

"Hello? Is anyone here? I could really use a hand right now as you can... see my condition." I said again but louder this time. Was everyone on a lunch break? It was unusually quiet for a spa. When no response came, I decided to search for the reception to ask for directions or any helpful information to get me out of this awkward situation.

"Careful, boy. With you walking around like that, you're gonna break something." A man's voice came out from my left.

I stopped walking around.

"I'm sorry. Come again?" I asked.

"I said, BE CAREFUL. You're gonna break the poor girl's heart."

I hesitated for a moment, trying to recollect what I just heard.

"Shhh. Wherefore art thou talking to yond strange creature??" a woman scolded the man who was just talking to me.

"What strange creature and what poor girl's heart? And why are you talking funny?" I asked in tremendous curiosity.

The bird chirped for the third time.

"Oh, shut up, Ben. Nobody understands what you're chirping about." A girl's voice came from my right, supposedly scolding the bird.

"I... I must be in the wrong place or in the middle of a rehearsal or something. If you would excuse me...," I slowly backed out of the weird place I accidentally stumbled upon.

"Excuse thee? Doth thee coequal knoweth whither thou art at mine lief knave?" another man said in a bizarre accent, as if he was from another world.

"He means, 'Excuse you? Do you even know where you're at, my dear boy?'" said the girl who just scolded the bird.

"No, where am-" I started but the woman who had the same accent as the man cut me off by saying,

"Thou art at Retrofuturism Gallery. Oh, art thee that naive?"

"Why is he staring at a wall when he can be staring at us?" asked the man who told me to be careful, to the other people in the room.

"Funny one, he is. Must be one of those wannabe dilettantes with that even funnier walking stick." said another man in the same voice and tone as the previous man.

I counted the people in the room. There was this bizarre-accented man and woman, a poor girl whose heart I was gonna get broken, a bird, a man who wanted to know why I was staring at a wall which was the same as the one who told me to be careful and another man who said I was a wannabe dilettante.

I was in a room, alone, with five crazy people and a bird. Of all the days I could be forgetting my phone at home, today had to be it. Not knowing and being unable to see where I was, I sat down right where I was on the cold marble floor, totally unbothered to look for a chair. I was having one of those panic attacks. I inhaled deeply and shakily took my sunglasses off.

But as soon as I took off my sunglasses, everyone gasped.

"Why? Why is everyone gasping?" A man who I hadn't counted before asked.

"If you would just open your eyes, you'd know."

"You know I can't. Claire painted me this way."

My head bolted right up.

"What do you mean painted?" I asked but to my dismay, my question went answered.

"What happened to your eyes?" the translator girl asked.

"Haven't you ever seen a blind man before?" I joked.

"Blind? What's that?" The girl asked, confused.

"It means I can't see." I answered in surprise. How can someone not know what blind is?

Everyone gasped louder. The bird chirped.

"You... You can't see?" the man questioned in disbelief.

"Oh, for heaven's sake. What a poor, poor creature thee art!" The woman cried out loud.

"Didst thee heareth that? The knave can't see. That gent can't see us!" The man said in sympathy.

"Why is that a big deal?" I asked sounding a bit offended.

"Lief knave, Thou has't failed to admire the most popular painting in this town, me and mine beautiful wife." the man said.

"Thou dost taketh my breath away." the woman told the man in a passionate voice.

"Stop exaggerating, Piero. The most popular painting in town is the one with me in it. Look at the five-piece painting of me, eyes closed to eyes opened with only black and white colors in the first piece to various shades of beautiful colors bursting and swirling with life in the last piece. Look how it represents the wonders of open-mindedness." the normal-accented man debated while his other selves in the other four pieces mumbled in agreement.

The bird chirped in disagreement, pecking at what sounded like an iron cage.

"No, the most popular art piece in town is me. Can you not see the beauty of love in my sculpture? How Madeleine, my creator, has molded the pieces of my heart with wood, iron and glass depicting the fact that some parts had hardened but some parts were still fragile? Can you see the humanity and the genuinity in that?" the translator girl chimed in.

Suddenly, everyone got into a heated argument about who was the most admired art piece in this gallery.

Realization hit me too late. I shook my head. This wasn't possible. They must be pulling my leg because I can't see. This is some sick joke, I told myself. If not, then I must be losing my sanity. There is no way-

I was rudely interrupted from my thoughts.

"So tell me, blind man, which of these art pieces is the best? We will stop our nonsense rowing if you would kindly pick one for us." the man who told me to be careful asked and everyone burst into laughter to the irony of the question.

But I didn't hear the rest of their conversation. Everything had been too much of an unworldly experience.

Because I had fainted, devoid of all consciousness.