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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Start your story with someone entering a museum, and end it with them settling down to join a sit-in.

Posted in High School on Oct 25, 2022

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✍️ 41 stories

“I see red” by S. Athena

Submitted to Contest #80

The first day I walk by the ladies with the blood-red hair, I ignore them. It’s nothing new to come by eccentric folk in London or seeing the beautiful, majestic entrance of the British Museum, with its proud columns and its iconic, awe-inspiring pediment, serving as the backdrop for the odd protest. I’m in a hurry - for my first tour of the day is about to start. So, I walk in without ceremony.The second day I walk by the ladies with the blood-red hair, I pause ever so slightly to wonder what compels them to be back, enduring the cold and t...

7 comments 7
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“We Have Stolen Bodies” by Tatiana Olin

Submitted to Contest #80

We Have Stolen Bodies Tatiana Fox, Feb 2021 I went to the history museum for the exhibit on the era of colonial and Native American conflict during the settlement and expansion into the Mid-Atlantic. It was supposed to focus on first-hand accounts of the time period of kidnappings and micro-treatises between small settlements of both European settlers and the local tribal villages, including peoples like the Shawnee and the Delaware. As an archaeologist who works in the Mid-Atlantic region, this period we call the Proto-Historic, or Contac...

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“When I was in New York, a Dead Man Said my Name” by Calypso N

Submitted to Contest #80

When I was in New York, a dead man said my name. It was summer and the heat was incredible; you could see the homeless beginning to blister on street corners, and people selling bottles of ice water for one dollar. Tourists with sweat dripping down their arms barely had time to stop to admire the scenery before they were pressing into buildings and basking in the blast of AC. I was on my lunchbreak and had some time to kill before I needed to get back to the office, but I wasn’t particularly enthused about going anywhere. I’d stood under t...

6 comments 6
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“Shoe Tyin” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #80

“You know, I been here. I remember that bone thing there. And that thing that looks like the ugliest bird you’d ever want to meet. You ever been here before? They got about five, six, oh I don’t know lots of floors of exhibitions. I think I’m going to sit here by the window on this bench. I’ve seen most of what I care to see in life, and I’ll just slow you down. Take the kids and go.” “You sure Dad? You going to be alright. Need anything?” “No, stop fussing. Just go. If I get bored, I’ll take a na...

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“Where Were You?” by Anne Ryan

Submitted to Contest #80

     Muriel’s footsteps made a hollow echo on the museum floor as she stopped short in front of a photograph of the World Trade Center in flames. Softly in the back of her mind a country song flitted through: Where were you when time stopped frozen that September day? September 11, 2001.     A tingle of fear crept up Muriel’s spine, remembering.      “Mamma,”  Murial had said, running up to her mother that Tuesday morning, “can I have a ---” &...

3 comments 3
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“TRIP TO YESTER-YEAR” by Sivaram Govindaraj

Submitted to Contest #80

The museum group consisted of Dame Penelope Finch, John and Silvia Reed, Henry Hilton and Gloria Bentley. Penelope 55, was widely read, had travelled extensively, and was the author of a book on museums of the world. Reed now 60 had been part of British legations and Silvia who was 55 had shared life with him. Henry Hilton at 45 was an American and had been the head of Hilton Foods and taking a break was now interested in museums. Gloria Bentley 35 was British, was the daughter of a British diplomat and was interested in museums. The gr...

4 comments 4
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“King's Guardian” by Raine Chandler

Submitted to Contest #80

Zuri stepped off the bus along with the twelve other students in her history class and their teacher, Mr. Cahill. She stretched her back and looked across a spacious plaza, which hosted an abstract, geometric, steel sculpture that doubled as a water feature in its centre, at the massive building in front of her. Clean cut and modern and sporting an entirely glass façade, the National Civil Rights Museum stood with its doors open, ready to welcome visitors. On either side of the doors, there were two banners, one proclaiming the opening of a ...

4 comments 4
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“Sitting with the Mayday Tribe” by Ali Anthony Bell

Submitted to Contest #80

“Hello, Smithsonian American Art Museum, office of the curator, how may I help you?”“Hello, this is Anthony Bannister with NPR, may I speak with Mr. Grayson D. Stoke please?”“Let me see if he’s available, may I ask you the object of your call?”“I’d like to schedule an interview for a radio show.”“Hold on please.”The music isn’t bad for once, I recognize the saxophone, must be ‘Why Don’t you do Right?’ I’m just starting to enjoy it when…“Thank you for waiting Mr. Bannister, I’ll put you through.”“Hello Mr. Bannister, Grayson Stoke here, my as...

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“Is This Art?” by Kel Espinosa

Submitted to Contest #80

New York City, the greatest city and the most culturally diverse place on Earth. People from all corners of the globe came to the Big Apple as jobseekers, expatriates, tourists, and immigrants — Joseph Cruz was one of those immigrants. Joseph was from the Philippines. Six months after graduating college, he got himself a job as a baker and a certificate that he was now an American citizen, along with his family. It was late afternoon, and it was the end of his shift at work. He got out from a supermarket with supplies. While heading b...

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“The Missing Link” by Yvone Mthembu

Submitted to Contest #80

  CW: violence I shouldn't be here, at least not without my dad.   I stand outside the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto's Khumalo Street and try to recall the events of 16 June 1976 and the ensuing Soweto uprising.   I look around people,journalists,students and historians taking a look around,taking pictures,making sketches or scribbling in their notebooks funny how we love a tragedy.   I look around and notice one odd character,she looks around my age ,she's wearing a knee-length floral dress, her shoulder length aubur...

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“Sitting On The Bench of History” by Nelson Locklear

Submitted to Contest #80

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is a United States federal law that wan enacted on November 16, 1990, by George Bush. This Act requires that any federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American “cultural items” to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian. This Act allowed many Native peoples to be able to regain parts of their culture that at one time seemed to be lost forever. While many involved in Museums were hesitant at having to do ...

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“A Day at the Museum ” by Gerard Watson

Submitted to Contest #80

     On Saturday morning, I entered the Brooklyn Museum, never thinking I’d be calling my father to come and get me out of jail six hours later.  You know, I shouldn’t have been at the museum at all that morning. A month earlier, Professor Clark, who taught Literature and Art at Brooklyn College, posted a list of topics for our mid-term research papers. I chose literature of the African Diaspora. Her instructions were simple: research and write the report and submit it by the first Monday of next month—no excep...

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“Good Yielding” by Alex Fry

Submitted to Contest #80

It was midnight and Salvador Dalí’s ghost stepped over the dozing morphine addict and walked inside. The termites would take the building out by noon. It should have happened before. As the wood was being gnawed away comfortably, it should have collapsed down on audaciously dressed visitors squinting at ancient frescoes. The images of man and woman coming closer and closer to their eyes. But it didn’t happen then. It happened at noon. A janitor was the only casualty. He was now cleaning the polluted air with his metal vacuum brush. It is all...

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“Red Brushstroke” by Karen Russell

Submitted to Contest #80

The bus was full the day Rosie decided to visit the museum. Her art professor had encouraged the whole class to go while the special exhibit on the Renaissance was being displayed. She made her way down the jostling bus aisle and, with just a glance, seemed to ask, “Can I sit here?” She then withdrew into herself, plugging in her headphones to drown out the loud conversation coming from four rows back.   Her eyes looked out, not seeing anything. She was only trying to pass from one place to another as seamlessly as possible, withou...

3 comments 3
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“THE APPLE OF TRUTH” by L.L. Lux

Submitted to Contest #80

“Who was the guy who invented evolution?” Eve mumbled while taking off her coat.Jacob looked at her in despair. She caught his glare and started apologizing, “I know, I should watch more Discovery Chanel. My brain is all mushy.”He shakes his head, “Or read a book. And your brain is mushy because it’s full of kittens. You are way too much on social media just binge scrolling pictures of these fluffy devils.”“They are no devils,” she laughs, “they are adorable angels.”They continued walking up the stairs. Both were mesmerized by the museum’s i...

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