The Museum of Magical Items

“Listen, The Museum of Modern Art, the MoMA, is cool. It’s nothing compared to MoMI, the Museum of Magical Items. We house the world’s largest collection of magical items and oddities, including myself.” The tour guide, who was an echoing suit of headless armour, bowed.

The tour group gave muffled applause for two seconds and then turned to look at the idiot at the back who’d taken a picture of the guide with the flash on his camera. Footsteps clapped on the chessboard marble tiles. On the ceiling high above the painted gods appeared to be doing things to each other that Steve hoped no child would ever look up to see. One of the painted gods, most likely Zeus, gave Steve the middle finger.

“Not to worry folks,” said the armour, sound coming up from inside it with the sound of a talking well, made of metal buckets, “flash photography is permitted here in the lobby, but I ask you to turn it off as we head through the large doorway on your left there.” The armour pointed with a gauntleted hand.

“Will the flash damage the exhibits? I thought they were magical?” said a smug man at the back wearing branded everything with the tags still on. The man’s girlfriend was too busy taking photos of herself on her phone to see that the party was walking away from her.

“No. The majority of exhibits are impervious to flash but some of them might damage you. Many, like myself are sapient and roam freely within the halls. Be polite, most of us were crafted for war.” The armour struck the kind of poses normally assumed by muscle bound men covered in fake tan on stage.

The crowd nodded and someone else took a photo of the guide. Steve was taking photos of everything on his phone of course but having read up on the museum and the tour, he wanted to skip to the good stuff like the Tri-dented Sea Wraith.

“In this lobby here, behind the glass we have the first of the exhibits. The Wholly Grey L is the last surviving letter of the original Hollywoodland sign. The other letters were destroyed of course during the Mavelous and the DCiduous armies. We all know how that ended.” The crowd laughed. Steve imagined that if the armour had owned a face, it would have winked for the punchline.

The guide walked on through the large archway on the left into a huge hallway filled with stuffed animals, weapons and touchscreens that gave additional information.

“What’s your name?” asked an elderly woman whose glasses seemed to be thicker than the frames could support. Her eyes looked enormous thanks to the magnification. Steve would put money on the woman being a witch. Casting magic was notoriously bad for your eyesight in the long run. Turning his phone slyly to the side he tried to take a photo of the wrinkled old lady. When he looked at his phone the photo was of a remarkably attractive woman in her mid to late twenties.

Steve looked up from the photo on his phone at the witch it had to be. The old lady was looking at him with those stupidly large eyes. She stuck out her pinkie finger and her thumb then mouthed call me. Nope. He wasn’t going to fall for that again.

“My name,” said the guide, “is the Armour of Amour. My friends call me Arnold.”

“You have friends?” asked the branded man, showing what were clearly fake teeth. His girlfriend was presumably still taking selfies in the lobby, oblivious.

“Well, actually no. But you can call me Arnold if you feel like it.” Steve pictured a weak smile, the kind of needy smile that said; be my friend, be my friend, please, I’ll do anything for you if you just call me Arnold and pretend to be my friend.

“First up here in the Hall of Wonders, we sometimes just say How, is the mighty Ex-Cali Bear.” The armour turned and gestured with the pomp of a game show host revealing the grand prize to a lucky contestant.

Ex-Cali Bear was a taxidermized were-bear with its arms shaved from paw to elbow and tattoos showing beneath. One of the tattoos read said, ride or dye. Steve didn’t know it that was a joke, or the legendary warrior had just been a moron.

It was at least nine feet tall, standing bipedal. The jaws could have ripped off Steve’s head whole. Ex-Cali Bear was responsible for at least a hundred murders, possibly more. Its stuffing was responsible for a smell of rotting cabbage. Steve backed away.

“Next, we have the Girdle of Might, worn by the god Thor until he got a better one. If you were to strap something to the Girdle of Might, it might be weightless. The belt is a bit temperamental.” The belt looked like a wrestler’s tournament prize, silver with Nordic runes and the first ever takeaway menu tucked into a pouch that looked like it had been ripped from the Bat-belt. Steve snapped photos from a few different angles.

Steve’s phone buzzed. He had a contact addition from someone on the museum’s Wi-Fi.  When he looked at the contact photo it was a painting of the same woman, he’d seen looking at the witch. Her name was Ma Green Dell. Turning off the screen of his phone he ignored it. He just had to get through the tour without turning down the request or having to talk to her.

“Here we have the mythical Helmet of Hades. The helmet was created by the cyclopes for the god of the underworld. It was stolen by Perseus, who used it to look at bathing women, from where we get the word pervert.” The tour group ood and ahd and took thousands of photos on their camera phones.

“Next is the Cronus Sickle, sharp enough to cut through any material. That is why the staff of the museum have stopped cleaning it to avoid any more unplanned organ surgery.” Arnold said it without a hint of the joke and swore at the blade as it passed.

After that the group was shown the Staff of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

“I must ask you not to touch it. Due to its ability to change size rapidly, it cannot be housed in a fixed cage and therefore we have it on open display.” The tiny thing was the size of a drinking straw, entirely gold. Steve didn’t see the point in taking a photo, it just looked like a blingy straw.

“This here is the Sword of Peleus. It grantees victory in battle and disfunction between the sheets, don’t ask me why. Please.” The sword was a one handed marvel of crafting with a purplish-silver blade and an ornate handle.

The sound of crashing, screaming and breaking glass hit Steve’s ears all at once with the force of a brick to the head.

No longer the size of a pencil, the Staff of Sun Wukong had stretched to the length of a bus and the circumference[LM1]  of a tree. Surprise, surprise, it was the idiot in head-to-toe branded clothes speared on it and groaning.

“I did explain not to touch it did I not sir?” The armours voice had gone up in pitch. Its hands made a WHAT THE HELL? Gesture before it reached inside itself and pulled out a radio. “Front desk, we’ve got another genius losing his chest V to the Staff of Sun Wukong. No rush. He’s pinned down.” Arnold clicked its fingers in front of the man’s face. The sound was like the clang of a tiny gong. “Every day, why is there always one?”

Arnold took them to the next undamaged display. Cupid’s Bow had a long and creepy history. It had thicker glass around it than the Mona Lisa. Steve couldn’t get a photo without glare on the lens.

Next up was Babr-e Bayan, a coat worn by the Persian hero Rostam. It was fire-proof, water-proof and invincible. Rostam’s skeleton remained inside because thanks to an oversight in the making of the tight-fitting coat, the warrior had never been able to take it off.

“This exhibit is the Falcon Cloak of Freyja. Originally it allowed the wearer to turn into a falcon and back. Now it just turns them into falcons, which is why you can now find one of our former janitorial staff Dennis nesting in the Scott’s Pine next to the car park and defecating on all of the red cars.” It looked just like a regular cloak to Steve, the kind that his mother wore when it was cold outside or when she couldn’t be bothered paying the heating bill.

“The Seven-League Boots allow the wearer to step seven leagues with every step. Since most people don’t have legs seven leagues or more in length, it usually proves fatal for mortals.” They were beautiful red leather boots, definitely made for walking, if you were a god. “The last person to survive wearing those was Nancy Sinatra, she wrote a song about it.” A portrait of the singer in black and white sat behind the boots.

“This case normally houses the Shoes of Vidar, which give gods unparalleled foot protection. The shoes are currently on loan to a joint research group being headed up by Adidas and Nike.” Someone’s flash went off as people took photos. A distant growl hinted that it would be best if that didn’t happen again.

“This is the necklace Brisingamen, worn by the goddess Freyja. She originally thought it was the necklace made her irresistible to men. It turned out that she was just an incredibly attractive woman and that most men are faithless pigs.” Women in the crowd either laughed or nodded bitterly.

The Seal of Solo Man had a distorted human face in the surface that was said to have inspired the carbonite imprisonment suffered by Han Solo in Star Wars. Arnold rushed them onwards as the demons within the ring were in the habit of revealing people’s darkest desires. A woman in the crowd slapped her husband as the smoky vision of him kissing someone that wasn’t his wife, flew out of his ear.

Seeing his face on a naked body he wished was his, Steve turned to see the origin. Ma Green Dell had the wispy vision pouring out of her ears. Her jam jar glasses were gone and so was at least a century. She looked his age if not younger.

“Is this better?” asked the witch. “I can be like this for up to six hours. That’s long enough for most men. “Come on handsome. You know you want to.”

He did want to. Steve looked at his MoMI ticket. It was good for two days.

“You only live once,” he said.

“Not me. I’ve died several times.” She winked. Instead of being creepy it was just alluring. Arnold was right, men were faithless pigs. He was single though, so why not?

“You’ve got me,” he said.

“Excellent. I could just eat you up.”