Down the Rabbit Hole

“Don’t you remember?”

The universe has been spying on me for a while now. Its sharp gaze leaves hints on strangers’ faces and fools my ears by making them believe they heard my name being shouted as I walk across all streets.

“Evren.” It whispers the word I find myself most often forgetting to remember. I hear that name rushing through my veins as I cross 555th avenue, the name that traps me into living a real-life version of groundhog day, except in my case, the days pass. 

Before blinking, the moment drifts away, and I find myself in front of the one place where I can run from the world. Roaming through the lofty halls of culture and knowledge, it hits me it’s just another ordinary Tuesday evening- except today isn’t Tuesday. The days have lost track of me, and this simple fact has made little to no impact on my life. Therefore, I expect today is Tuesday since the museum always calls me those afternoons where the sun gleams a little more and light surpassing the windows turns the blank walls into a stained sunset-orange hue. 

But today is unusual. My head tilts in response to a new addition to the museum’s collection; a monotonous clock on the wall. Where numbers are expected to be, they’re replaced by the word ‘NOW’ in sharp, bold letters. 

“Well, that’s new,” I murmur before resuming my ordinary routine. 

With the museum to myself, the arched walls lure me in, with glass shields protecting the art made by people unafraid to show themselves to the world. Above me, the afternoon clear deep sky stretched beyond the glass ceiling with the moon close enough to see when squinting. The museum is a blinding pearl, decades old- and like anything with a history, it hides secrets waiting for the right person to show them to. 

Turning left, I see it. 

Right before the start of the usual route I take, my knees draw closer to the floor, bewitched by the unaddressed envelope now resting in my hands. On the other side of the inexplicable, they shut the envelope with a velvet wax seal closed off with the smell of uncertainty (not the fragrance of my choice). 

When I would be alone, someone had gone through a lot of trouble to get this to me. The contents of the letter are a mystery I’m not sure I’m willing to discover, but the rush of feeling the tiny hairs rise on my neck was enough of an answer. 

“Show me the way to the loneliest place in the world. 

P.S. Still taking a left? - e” 

Midsummer, yet my breath creates a bit of fog in the air when exhaling. The paper crumpled up as my hand transformed into a fist, wondering who could know where I go every Tuesday and, even worse, the exact path around the museum. No one is close enough to me to know that. 

The first painting I planned on visiting complemented the instruction in the letter, so this note does not affect my usual routine. After a couple of right turns, in front of me lay what I wanted. And right below awaited another envelope like the one before. 

On the wall stood a very well-known work of art, which depicted the shared human experience that is solitude. Not even loneliness, but existing by yourself. A woman with a green coat fitted for the cold weather with black fur shielding her neck, accompanied by a bright yellow hat above a gaze looking downwards. She sits at a small round table with a simple cup of coffee and a large window lurking behind her. Beyond this window is a stretch of darkness, making it impossible to gaze at the horizon, yet the comforting warmth of the lights inside the building put a stark contrast. The woman’s eyes are closed, shutting out the windows to a person’s soul. 

The painting is ‘Automat’ by Edward Hopper, printed on a golden plaque at eyesight level while getting down to open the following letter. It is a precise copy of the last one, and the contents are just as vague.

“Longing is not the same as living.

P.S. What day is it? -e”

A museum revolves around the passing of time, yet something as simple as the date does not come to mind. I could respond with stories from as long as a thousand years ago, but that would not answer the question. If museums could speak, they’d never run out of stories. Therefore my conversations with it never seem to end. 

The heel of my shoe shrieks as it twirls in the mopped wood, heading to find an echo of my thoughts: the answer to the riddle. 

Yet my thoughts sneak away to another place, another time. Would I be caught up in this odd situation if I had taken a right? The what if’s sneak in, but I’m used to them. If I had taken a right, I do not know what part of the museum I’d be caught up in, and was the unknown even worth the risk? 

Stopping at the hall, in front rests the definition of longing. Two hands a few inches away from touching each other. What causes more tremendous pain, being completely alone or the solace of not having the one you ache for the most? The second choice is not something I am willing to experience. So instead, I spend my afternoons staring at artworks, crafting my interpretation of what the famous Michelangelo created in ‘The Creation of Adam.’ After all, different eyes notice different things- you can never predict the eye of the beholder. 

Here is a portrait of all I do not have, replacing this emptiness with yet another envelope by my side. There’s no need to describe how I get to the floor and pick it up, as this has only become another part of the routine I follow. Why bother telling the story if one already knows it? Even so, I peak into the words typewritten on the piece of parchment, which read: 

“What am I seeing?

P.S. What’s the word we never see? -e”

Glimpses of the museum catch my eye, and still, I do not know what I see. This place, so familiar as I believed it was, turned out to be full of uncertainty. Lip curling, my thoughts wonder if that’s a good thing. 

With the paper tucked tightly between my hands, I approach what’s on the opposite end of the wall I had just been facing. On the wall, a painting was facing me that I had never honestly looked at. Within a void of white, a small black dot exits. There’s nothing really logical about it. There is no correct answer or way to study it that could conclude what the painting means. And that’s why I decided it was the most thrilling thing I had ever experienced. 

Once letting go, I drew nearer to the electricity and passion this peculiar piece held. My eyes felt mesmerized, and my mind was hypnotized- sinking further into the void the piece described. Fingers itched and began scratching each other, drawing in and out of a fist. It no longer resisted the tension until it finally released my right hand into the oil canvas. Carefully, this hand went further up and up until it reached a cold indication that it had made contact with the object of its desire. And that’s when it opened. 

Suddenly a portion of the wall had been pushed backward, creating a creak that looked like a door. And what if I pushed it? Curiosity has its rewards, so for once in a long time, I long to experience what the unknown feels like.

So, I push the wall.

Without making any noise, the part of the wall shifts as my steps go further inside, the wall rotating with me. Soon enough, the door was back in its original position, and I found myself at the other end of the museum wall. The quiet and black shadows that oversaturated the wall did not last long, as a beam of yellow light came from behind me and fought against it. Breathing became much more conscious while turning around to see what was causing the glimpse of light in the abandoned room. 

And to my surprise, a glass door greeted me. On the door, it read: 555. 

Sweating palms reached for the golden door handle, goosebumps creeping over my arm as they came into contact with the cool doorknob. Creaks interrupted the room’s stillness with me, making an opening in the door- slowly breaking down the barrier between me and that hidden. In my hand, the doorknob slipped further away from my reach, and a gulp escaped through my throat. The door slid open, and the dark welcomed me. 

Time slowed down, and every rational thought escaped my mind. 

I breathed, “Down the rabbit hole I go.” 

And took the step forward. 

* * *

Before blinking, I’m back at the museum. Except this isn’t my Tuesday evening museum. I have no idea where I ended up. 

I take a right turn, and I see it. 

The clock remained in the same spot as the original, except in this world, it seemed much more menacing- the word ‘NOW’ fueling the ticking time bomb in my chest. 

An exit lights up a lightbulb in my head as I try to find my way back home. Somehow, the task seems nearly impossible, even though I know this museum-like I know myself. 

Turns out I don’t know myself that well at all. 

Searching for something familiar, my eyes travel towards the glass ceiling unique to my beloved museum, and there I still find it, but with it, something that matches seeing a ghost. Right next to the window is the moon herself taking a peek into the walls of history and neutrals. She seemed to pay a visit to the earth, as the sky was barely visible with the moon around, having never looked so surreal and boundless. She was cosmic, quite literally enormous. It took every bit of strength to stop gawking at the sight before me, the most artistic thing ever witnessed. 

My heart pounded deeply as Tuesday had just gotten much more exciting. While strolling around the unrecognizable museum, I tried to make my way toward the painting that had led me here. But blocking my way appeared a hallway I had never spotted before, and there was no choice but to go inside of it. 

Once wrapped in between them, the walls grew until the sky above me disappeared, taking control of the world outside of me. Crack. 

Below me, the wooden floor shattered, breaking apart enough to reveal the fragile glass I was now standing on. Except the glass showed no reflection but offered a look into the museum I knew. The familiar portraits hanging on the white walls and the casual emptiness of the museum felt comforting instead of isolating. 

Tugging at my bomber jacket, that behind me vanished as I began traveling forward. The walls seemed to close more on me with every step taken, creating a rigid path. If I wanted to get home, I’d have to do so before the walls crashed in on me.  

My head spun around as every part of me felt twisted and disoriented, as each turn I made threw me into a dead end. Somehow, my heartbeat reiterated itself through the tall walls beyond my reach, and my eardrums rang with the thrashing thud of each step that caused a crack in the looking glass. 

Yet as I glanced down, Automat showed itself to me. Throwing my head back up, I realized the painting had also found me here. The lone woman whose soul remained a mystery across from me. 

“Still taking a left?” The question rang through me, so I took a right. 

As I turned my path, the glass began shifting, and the walls paused their plan to close, only for something more puzzling. Defying all laws of gravity, the maze reversed itself, running upside down. 

I prepared for the fall, but it never came. Instead, it glued my shoes onto the floor, and I witnessed how it felt to fly rather than fall in slow motion. The walls and floor were in reverse, and it would take a long time for them to settle down, so I ran. These stretched-out halls continued to close in on me, so I’d have to outrun them. 

Fog launched in to blur my vision, an amethyst-purple attacking me from all sides. Although this should have been an obstacle, I noticed the luminous and mystic aurora lights overhead causing the smoke. The glass was barely perceptible, and the walls were out to get me, but the possibility of finding my home was still there, and the thin invisible string that held together me and this chance was worth the risk. 

After continuing to run for a while, Michelangelo showed up. The fog was fading enough that I could glimpse at the most famous hands in history. However, in this version of the painting, only one hand was in the image, reaching out toward the abyss. Longing is not the same as living; there’s no chance of living if one does not yearn for something. It was getting a bit tiring to only walk and think in my museum rather than feeling the adrenaline of traveling through this one. 

So what day is it? I’d discover as soon as I got back.

The walls dwindled, and the glass reached its cracking point, sinking, no longer withstanding gravity. Left existing within a white void, I rest. There’s nothing logical about what’s happening, no correct answer or way to study it that could bring a conclusion as to what this means. What anything means, for that matter. That’s when I decided that this -all of it, as inexplicable as it is- was the most fascinating, beautiful thing I have ever experienced. 

A typewriter appears in front of me. 

I write, “I didn’t ask to fall down the rabbit hole.”

And ‘e’ replies with my thought: “But you found wonderland.” 

My mind lingers on the last question ‘e’ had asked me. 

“What’s the word we never see?” 

See, the word I most often forget is the one the universe has been trying to remind me of the whole time. 

“Evren,” I whisper back. 

A gripping rush flies through my whole body. Surrounding me are hundreds of sparks of colors, temporarily blinding my eyes as they rush with me through this temporary void. Unlike before, I let go of my hands and let the wind carry my weight. I float in the middle of space, waiting for the museum’s light walls to reach me like they always do. 

And before I know it, it’s Tuesday evening all over again. 

In front of me, a painting sits on the wall locking its eyes with mine, temporarily blinded by the sun’s orange light coming into the museum. But my other eye can still see, so it notices the piece of art that describes a white void with a black dot in the center of it all living, staying in the midst of it all rather than running. 

My museum is a pearl, many years old- and as anything with history, it holds secrets waiting for the right person to show them to. 

And maybe I was the right person to show these secrets to. 

* * *

“Did all of this really happen?”

I turn the last note around to see e’s reply, which answers me:

“Or did it all happen in another world? -e”