Thursday, May 3, 2018

Display - Flash Fiction



Intersections - Nonliteral by Jiri Horacek


Display

 

Taxis honked and jockeyed as always.  The wind blew up between the skyscrapers at a brisk pace and stole Bjorn’s breath away as he turned to face it.  A traffic light was out somewhere, the incessant whistle of the policeman blew directing traffic.  

Bjorn Andersen started up steps to the museum entrance and finished his climb at the polished brass framed glass doors fifteen-foot high.   They pushed inward effortlessly.

He stood in the front of the gift shop with all its miniature reproductions of displays beyond the reception desk leading to the building’s interior.  A man looked up from a computer screen.

He waved Bjorn over. 

“Dr. Andersen, how good to see you.  You are here to inspect the laser work?”

Bjorn nodded.  “Yes, I am happy to see you too, Dr. Dull.  I hear the wall is done.”  Alan Dull, Bjorn learned was to pronounce his name as Doll. Bjorn liked the unpretentious curator of the museum of all things known.  The museum rose twenty stories, a diminutive structure among the surrounding skyscrapers.  Yet, it held something for every science of human endeavor to understand. 

“The wall is finished on schedule, just as you said it would be.  I have to say it is spectacular.”

#

Bjorn and Alan stepped out of the freight elevator onto the Twentieth floor.  “Welcome back to the Solar System.”  Alan gesture with a sweep of his hand.  The area was littered with sawhorses, concert saws, nail-guns and stacks of quartz floor tiles, white with gray ribbons running through it, lying among all the rest of the construction materials.   

Fifty strides later was the laser; its mount was nail-gunned to the cement floor.  Hydraulics raised and lowered it on the X-axis and a cross arm allowed it travel on the Y-axis.   Next to it was a bank of computers that controlled the sweep of the beam on the wall. 

Bjorn turned to the wall.  The Sun just a little off center, as planned, of the thirty-foot-high wall and the same wide.  The planets orbits carved in their tracks around the Sun represented a moment trapped in time.

“Ten men polished the granite for two weeks.  What do you think?”  Alan asked.

A lump formed in Bjorn’s throat.  He couldn’t have predicted this outcome.  The polish had added depth to the wall as though it went on to eternity.  The side lighting brought throughout the rock sparkles that twinkled as though there were real stars light-years away.

“It’s beyond words,” Bjorn finally croaked out.  He stepped to the corner of the wall and read the six-inch-high letters laser inscribed, inlaid with white enamel. 

THE SOLAR SYSTEM
EQUINOX - FIRST DAY OF SPRING
9:15 A.M. 20 MARCH 2018

Perfect, just perfect,” Bjorn mumbled to himself. 

“And, the statue is finished.  You want to see how it will look.  Of course, you have to imagine the floor laid in and all this debris cleaned up.  Anyway, here…”  Alan pulled a tarp from over a six-foot-high figure.  He wrapped his arms around the waist and hefted into place in from of the wall.  “It’s fiberglass, so not too heavy.”

Alan turned the figure in a long-hooded robe with an outstretched hand to the wall, so the hand rested on the third ring from the bottom and stepped away. 

Bjorn caught his breath.  Man is reaching out to the cosmos in search of understanding, to quale his need to know what his place was in the Universe; if only to stand in awe of a God capable of orchestrating a balance of forces that brought about our existence, gave Bjorn a feeling of humbleness.   Sure, he designed the laser and programmed it to capture the system at this point.  But the outcome, well it was way beyond his expectation. 

Alan grinned, “I think it lends a certain level of mystic tone to the display.”

Bjorn stared at him.  Really, that’s all you take away from this?    Then rethought it. “You know, it does.”  It will add an appeal to those that don’t believe in God.  Those that think all this, everything is an accident, a coalesced product of the big bang.  Yes, the figure will add to their pleasure of the display as well as those like myself. 
~~~#~~~
It took another six months to finish the 20th floor.  The walls were rimmed in displays of all the planets.  Each with descriptions and photographs from Voyager 1, now 10 billion miles away to images captured by Hubbell.   The wall of the Solar System was ribboned off to prevent an accumulation of hand grease.  The robed figure stood on the white contrasting quartz.  Bjorn realized his robe wasn’t black but a deep blue iridescence that added a magical tone.
Bjorn Andersen studied it for a while.  Nice, now what next?  Perhaps, the Milky Way.

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