the joy of damage

On 79th street, the American Museum of Natural History.

Glide up the grand, granite steps to the gleaming, echoing entranceway. Up and over the babbling heads of centipede families queued by terse, bristling guards feeding sacs into clicking security machines.

Through the main hall, spiderworks of old bones tower; the young gape and point and chirrup. Onward, gliding through, climbing up. The tumult fades to a keening; degrades to a faint hiss of noise. Passages, stairs, quieter. Barely any sound now, or movement.

Push through the dusty, yellow tape – CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT CLOSED FOR – to the sixth floor. The surfaces are dimmer here, lit only sporadically. Lamps reflect like scattered fireflies from the plaque: Entomology Department.

Take a moment to listen. No cricket song, wing whirr, scuttle click. No sound. Unless, perhaps; a distant

tick

something. Creep, now, into the chamber. Glass-front casings, restraining armies of black, spiny shapes. No other feet have disturbed the dust here in days. No hesitant fingers brushed close to the glassed-off specimens in gleeful horror.

Yet beyond the swarms, in the corner, a shadow on a chair. Pale, angular, Jakob.

Oblivious, he waits. The armies are still; the wars are over. The news has not reached this far. Listen to him whisper.

Wasp, Apocrita, fly, Diptera, beetle, Coleoptera, weevil, Curculionoidea,

tick

Acarina. He sits, motionless but for his lips; the mandible pulse. Calm and quiet. The recitation is punctuated by something quite different, a simple phrase

There’s only so much a man can

tick

take. And begins again.

For Jakob, words of comfort. A healing mantra. And if not healing, then at least something other than the incendiary thing that sets his limbs itching to cast his body through the shuttered window.

You follow his gaze, now. The clock. It has an imperfection of some kind. At the forty-ninth second, the sweeping red arm catches harshly at something inside. An involuntary spasm of noise; a mechanical

tick

tic. Listen to him think, now. The next one. One more. If I hear the sound one more time, I will climb up onto this chair to the clock face and drive the bones of my fist through the plastic casing and cogs and spindles until i feel plaster on my knuckles.

Wide, staring eyes.

Each measured mark from the number 6, an increment of unease. The arm sweeps around, low. Anticipation registers. At 7, something with sharp, bristling, clicking, itching edges slides into the back of his mind. By 8, an agony of tension. Fingers twitching. An impossible wait for the

tick

before the glass bursts and all rational thought is subsumed by an apoplexy of black spiny shapes flashing on a field of white.

On an island, on a mountain, under perpetual cloud, a museum sits, damp and peaceful.

Below the roof, the space is refined; acoustically perfect. An expensive sound system, keeping distance from the walls, fills the air with a selection of exquisitely resonant string pieces. A small plaque discreetly advertises the manufacturer.

Violin notes dance from the four walls, those faces punctuated only by the automatic portraits. Cellos are lowing, rolling across the cheap, felt carpet.

The gallery is deserted. Not even the soft sideways shuffle of feet, or the whisperings of interpretation to add to the symphony.

Mariko sits quite still with her legs perfectly parallel, knees carefully angled square, feet flat. The grey of her uniform skirt is taut across her knees.

She is testing herself. How long she can keep her eyes open without blinking. The uniform grey of the carpet fills her vision. She is careful not to move her head, for fear she might catch a glimpse of the bright, green lawn. Her pet dachshund has problems with its eyes. She worries that the veterinary treatment is expensive, and so puts off finding out what the cost might be. The boy in her shared apartment calls the dog “Neko”, cat.

Perversely, Mariko thinks. She fears vaguely that the dog will be confused.

The string movement comes to an end. After a polite, terrible silence, the next begins.