Living Work of Art | Cultural Horror Story

“The W.S. Nationalite Museum closes in one hour. Please make sure to visit your favorite exhibits before closing. Specialty exhibits that require tickets will shut down in 30 minutes. Thank you and enjoy your stay.”

Shemaiah and Marita collectively rolled their eyes at the overheard speaker announcement. Both artists typically looked forward to scoping out historical artifacts and renowned artwork for inspiration but today was different.

After strolling through the abstract and contemporary sections, dominated by Wassily Kandinsky and Van Gogh respectively, the women were getting bored. Every piece of art felt like what they saw in art school, each artist on display seemed like a distant relative that appeared annually.

The duo came across the ornate metal section of the building. The design of the silver against the emeralds and rubies on a vase just outside the opening caught Marita’s eye.

“Come on,” Marita grabbed Shemaiah’s wrist firmly. “Let’s check out what the colonizers did with our stolen goods.”

Even Shemaiah had to admit that the different variations of jewelry, metal threaded sashes, and decorated plates were divine. The contrast of the vivid blues against the stark whites reminded her the ocean waves crashing on the shore. Shemaiah glanced around and found Marita concentrating on a polished staff adorned with a softball size pearl on top. As she walked closer, the designs engraved into the delicate silver became visible. Thin lines and squiggly circles came together to form a garden of flowers. After a few moments, she gently tapped her companion on the shoulder. Marita smiled back at her apologetically and they went on to explore the rest of the building.

To their left appeared to be an outdoor area for recreation but the sign above it read: Garden of Statues. Dying for fresh air, it was Shemaiah’s turn to lead the way. The women slowly examined each stoic figure. The shapes of their slender legs and small bosoms reminded them of models in Vogue magazine.

Toward the back of the garden was a bronze statue of a man, clenching his fists. The muscles and tendons of his arms and legs rippled through the greenish surface. Standing arm’s length away, the ladies noted the remarkable proportions of the artwork. Marita crouched on her haunches.
“Whew,” she whistled. “They even got the size of his male appendage pretty accurate.” She leaned a little closer to see if the ballsack was included. Shemaiah giggled at her friend’s fascination then focused on the statues’ face. The man was frozen in a grimace like the bronze was poured over him. Every detail, from his flared nostrils to his sideburns were carved into being. It all looked so lifelike except for one thing: his eyes. The eyelids, especially the squinted indents were there but it was pitch black where his eyeballs should’ve been. It made Shemaiah shiver. A flashback of the Night at the Museum appeared in her mind. Somehow it really did feel as if when she turned her back to him, the statue would follow. She took a step to the right, then the left. The darkness of his eyes trailed her movements.

“Girl, I’m done with this. It’s starting to really creep me the ever living fuck out.”
Marita stood up and saw the effects of Uncanny Valley on Shemaiah’s face and stroked her hand lovingly as they returned inside the museum.

“The W.S. Nationalite Museum closes in 30 minutes. Please make sure to visit your favorite exhibits before closing. All specialty exhibits have closed for the day. Thank you and enjoy your stay.”
Saving the best parts for last, the couple skipped into the Latin America exhibit. Portraits of rich shades of brown covered the walls. A hanging picture of a dark brown girl, no more than 4 years old drew Shemaiah’s attention away. She wore a frilly light blue dress with a white petticoat underneath. A big red bow highlighted her braided chignon bun. Her big brown eyes looked a little sad as if she wanted affection. The golden-brown teddy bear in her hands was held tightly against the girl’s chest. Shemaiah had never seen anything like this before, such beauty typically ignored in the art world. A few minutes went by before Shemaiah woke up from her trance. Marita was gone.

Shemaiah assumed she was further into the exhibit, and casually scanned each piece. One series featured tasteful nudes of a woman lounging in different positions. Neither slender nor curvy, Shemaiah took a couple extra seconds to notice the small painted circles for breasts and the dark circular squiggles where the woman’s thighs met. “Pubes. So authentic nudes are under a woman’s gaze,” Shemaiah thought. Shemaiah smiled at herself. This was the art that stroked her imagination, that made her see reality refracted from a new perspective.

Before she knew it, she had walked around back to the entrance of the section. No sign of Marita. Shemaiah did a 360 spin, then frowned at the dark suggestion in the back of her mind. “No,” she assured herself, “Marita would never ditch me.” Shemaiah walked out the exhibit and saw the sign for the restroom on the other side of the floor. She reached for her smartphone.

“Yo, whr r u? Potty time? Meet me @ Afro xhibit.”

She took a deep breath to quell her growing anxiety. “Don’t be so clingy. She’s a grown woman, she doesn’t need to be up my ass every moment we’re together,” Shemaiah told herself. The different groups of families and couples were passing all around her, each giving her more than a passing glance. Shemaiah began to feel weird and a bit silly worrying like this. She confidently strode toward the Afro American section.

Once inside, Shemaiah oddly felt like she was at home. The figures in the paintings looked like distant aunts and uncles, locked in different poses that looked like a communal dance. One sculpture of a man’s head piqued her interest. The man had a wide set nose, big eyes with full lips. Shemaiah particularly adored how the artist managed to sculpt the texture of the man’s short kinky hair. His high cheekbones and thick, sturdy neck reminded Shemaiah of her cousins. In fact, she could see this man sprout a body and jovially ask her when the next cookout is.

Lost in thought, Shemaiah noticed a figure in black standing across the room. She looked up to see it was a man with a badge. “Oh, I like the museum uniforms,” Shemaiah said to herself as she caught him staring at her. She briskly turned to find another piece to examine.

As she tried to pick out her next selection, a woman with a DSLR camera walked up behind her. Coolly, Shemaiah sidestepped to a nearby painting. The woman shadowed her. Shemaiah felt the tension rise in between her shoulder blades. She turned to look the woman in the face, head cocked with a slight smile. The woman met her gaze, then slowly walked over to the other side of the room. She pointed her camera at an abstract canvas covering the wall and snapped a few photos. Shemaiah shook her head and returned to where she was before.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the woman point the camera directly at her and snapped photos in quick succession. Before Shemaiah could whip around, the woman walked out of the exhibit. “Who does that without someone’s permission,” Shemaiah wondered.

Shemaiah was accustomed to catching strangers staring at her. Her waist-length dreadlocks decorated with colorful crisscrossed threads made her stand out from the crowd. Her green and orange sundress with yellow wedges really popped against her deep melanin. She knew she glowed from deep within, possessing the beauty gifted from her ancestors. She considered herself a living work of art, but that woman took it to a whole nother level. A bit unsettled, Shemaiah imagined Marita flipping the camera off with her bright, bold smile. She checked her phone to no avail. Zero new messages. The reception icon on the display bar kept going in and out.

Shemaiah felt a prickly sensation rise through her spine. She turned her head to look over her shoulder and saw a woman clad in the signature black ensemble stand about 5 feet away from her. The woman’s body was angled away from Shemaiah, but her head was parallel to the paintings. Her eyes, darting back and forth between the art, the patrons grazing around her and Shemaiah.
“Do these people think I’m gonna take a painting off the wall or something?” Shemaiah felt a deep rage begin at the pit of her stomach climb up. It wasn’t unusual for her to be tailed in a Nieman Marcus or even a Bloomingdale’s but a museum? This is beyond ridiculous. Shemaiah thought of the museum scene in Black Panther, where Killmonger poisoned the curator and stole his ancestor’s belongings back. She smiled ever so sweetly, the prolonged justice quelling the rage within.
Shemaiah walked into an adjoining room within the exhibit. It was strangely empty, with a few works on display. No sooner did she step inside, another museum employee did as well. Shemaiah made eye contact and carefully watched as he stood against the wall. She shook her head and made a mental note to make a complaint.

A shiny jet-black face mask with Fulani braids immediately captured her attention. It always amazed her how the cultural beauty of Africans survived the middle passage and thrived well into the 21^st century, evolving with the descendant’s creativity and innovation. The plaque of the wall described the mask as ceremonial to mark the coming of age for young women in the African villages. It’s narrow face shape, thin set eyes and narrow but flared nose looked foreign. Shemaiah remembered how eastern African people had completely different features than the western or northern Africans. She concluded it must be from the east. Shemaiah lost herself in the cultural and ethnic diversity found on one continent and how that manifested into traditions, garments, and communication methods.

She imagined traveling back in time to when these tribes were undisturbed by the theft of colonizers. She stood on a hot plain, patiently waiting to be invited onto tribal land for a welcoming ceremony. She heard the beats of the drums, the chants of the village men, the aromas circling her nose from the hard work of the village women. People decked out in beautiful painted on designs and beaded jewelry that decorated their body, gathered around her. They led her to the center of the drums and the chanting and began to dance.

The fluid transitions from hopping to twerking to shuffling were incredible to witness and soon Shemaiah couldn’t help but join in. After a few glorious minutes of reconnection, everyone stopped. She looked around and saw horrified looks on their faces. Women, screaming, ran in all directions to snatch their children and run. The men scattered to find their weapons of choice to face the incoming threat. The army of African warriors pushed Shemaiah back. She tried to reach out to them, but her hand instead rested on a cool, invisible surface.

Shemaiah snapped out of her daydream. Her hands began to shake, and anxiety gripped her posture. She quickly scanned the room to see even more museum employees, gathered around the outskirts of the room. “It’s time to go home,” Shemaiah thought. She took a step back and bumped into something solid. She spun around to see a glass wall, erected right behind her. She blinked a few times; almost certain she was still dreaming. She turned around to where she was facing before. Lo and behold, another glass wall. Shemaiah’s breath started to quicken. “This wasn’t here minutes before!” she asserted.

She stepped to her left and her hip hit another glass wall. Her eyes widen as she realized that she was encased in a glass box, towering a few feet taller than she could reach.

“Hey. Hey!” Shemaiah banged against the wall with her closed fists. The museum workers just stood there, watching as she struggled to get their attention. Shemaiah began to yell for help when a uniformed man approached her enclosure with a pane of glass. A woman in uniform set a small step ladder in front of him. The man stepped up to the highest step and placed the piece of glass on top of Shemaiah’s prison.

“What are you doing?! Why aren’t you helping me?!”

All but one of the museum employees calmly walked out of the exhibit. The lone one took a plaque from behind their back, applied adhesive and stuck it on the bottom of the box. Shemaiah cursed and stomped and pleaded. She cried and jumped and shouted at the top of her lungs.

Groups of visitors walked through the exhibit, paused to glance at the new addition. Shemaiah tried to signal for help. One family took a photo of her and a couple stood by, discussing the aesthetic of her clothing. “Is this mother Africa? Very bright hues but most definitely primal,” their muffled voices barely audible. A toddler ran up to the glass, but his mother quickly scooped him up and apologetically glanced toward an employee. No one did anything, they just watched. A few analyzed her as a specimen, while most just observed her. Shemaiah began to sob violently, claustrophobia taking over.

“The W.S. Nationalite Museum is now closed. Please make your way to the nearest exit. We thank you for your visit and we hope to see you again soon. Have a wonderful night.”


Everyone left the exhibit. Shemaiah crouched into fetal position, head buried in her arms. She rocked herself back and forth. Then one by one, the lights went out.